Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who responded to Graeme Wood’s idea that “quietist” Salafis who do not engage in politics or warfare represent an antidote to violent, activist Salafi groups like ISIS on the basis that all Salafis—jihadi or not—share similar ideologies. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Joas Wagemakers argued that Western governments should be wary of engaging quietist Salafis to counter ISIS’s ideology. While quietists may provide an effective counternarrative to ISIS, they may also reinforce beliefs that are at odds with the governments’ secular values.

Next up is Brookings’ Shadi Hamid, who argues that Salafis are often more theologically sophisticated than Muslim Brotherhood activists, which has implications for what types of arguments they’re likely to find persuasive. Beyond quietist and jihadi-Salafis there is also a third option of Salafis opting for the parliamentary process. Egypt, in this respect, could have been an interesting test case.

Shadi Hamid:As Jacob Olidort writes, quietists, jihadists, and other Salafis “are all composed of the same theological DNA… It is therefore not a big conceptual leap to go from quietism to jihadism.” That there isn’t much of a conceptual leap is precisely the point, but it’s hard to know when this is a good or bad thing. It can cut both ways.

Contrary to what many think, Salafis are at least in some ways more theologically sophisticated than mainstream Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. For reasons that are inherent to their particular brand of Islamism, theology simply isn’t as important for Brotherhood-inspired organizations. This is why Salafis tend to look at the Brotherhood with suspicion: they’re too flexible, too pragmatic, and too willing to use sweeping maslaha (public interest) arguments to justify or rationalize what are ultimately political imperatives. This is to say nothing of the more explicitly maqasidi approaches of Tunisian and Moroccan Islamists, with their emphasis on the purpose and objectives (maqasid) of sharia rather than the letter of the law.

The gap, then, between Brotherhood and Salafi organizations can be quite large. For this reason, once someone commits to a distinctly Salafi brand of Islam, they become more resistant to Brotherhood-type arguments. Theologically, they no longer speak the same language. Yet, quietist Salafis and jihadi-Salafis do speak if not the same language, then at least a similar one. This means that jihadi-Salafis are more likely to be persuaded by the arguments of other Salafis, including quietists, on questions of violence. Yet, similarly, quietists, because they share many of the same starting assumptions, may be susceptible to jihadi-Salafi arguments, particularly in contexts of religiously charged civil conflict where quietism becomes increasingly untenable.

It is difficult to be more precise, because claims of the efficacy of quietist outreach are largely anecdotal. And, there is the question of “religious” versus “political” motivations. Jihadi-Salafism may become appealing in places like Syria and Libya for reasons that have less to do with theology and more to do with power vacuums, the “normalization” of violence, and the fact that Jihadi-Salafi militias tend to be better equipped and more effective on the battlefield.

In short, because it can cut both ways, it would probably be unwise for governments to promote quietist Salafism as an “alternative.” To the extent that quietists want to promote themselves as alternatives, then governments should not block such activities, so as long as the quietists in question are acting through legal channels.

In between quietists who eschew politics and jihadi-Salafis who embrace violence, there is a third group: Salafis who opt to participate in the parliamentary process, something that we’ve seen perhaps most strikingly with the Nour party in Egypt, which won 28 percent of the popular vote in the 2011 elections. If Egypt had remained at least somewhat democratic, it would have been an interesting test case. If the Nour party had remained a powerful political actor with real influence, one can imagine the arguments of would-be jihadis attracting less sympathy (although how much less is hard to say). The key consideration here isn’t just the level of democracy, but also the perception among Salafis that they can, in fact, influence policy and legislation through the democratic process. In Egypt, this is something Salafis had, although that came with its own cost of dragging the country’s politics further to the right and deepening already high levels of polarization.

Authors

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who responded to Graeme Wood’s idea that “quietist” Salafis who do not engage in politics or warfare represent an antidote to violent, activist Salafi groups like ISIS on the basis that all Salafis—jihadi or not—share similar ideologies. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Joas Wagemakers argued that Western governments should be wary of engaging quietist Salafis to counter ISIS’s ideology. While quietists may provide an effective counternarrative to ISIS, they may also reinforce beliefs that are at odds with the governments’ secular values.

Next up is Brookings’ Shadi Hamid, who argues that Salafis are often more theologically sophisticated than Muslim Brotherhood activists, which has implications for what types of arguments they’re likely to find persuasive. Beyond quietist and jihadi-Salafis there is also a third option of Salafis opting for the parliamentary process. Egypt, in this respect, could have been an interesting test case.

Shadi Hamid:As Jacob Olidort writes, quietists, jihadists, and other Salafis “are all composed of the same theological DNA… It is therefore not a big conceptual leap to go from quietism to jihadism.” That there isn’t much of a conceptual leap is precisely the point, but it’s hard to know when this is a good or bad thing. It can cut both ways.

Contrary to what many think, Salafis are at least in some ways more theologically sophisticated than mainstream Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. For reasons that are inherent to their particular brand of Islamism, theology simply isn’t as important for Brotherhood-inspired organizations. This is why Salafis tend to look at the Brotherhood with suspicion: they’re too flexible, too pragmatic, and too willing to use sweeping maslaha (public interest) arguments to justify or rationalize what are ultimately political imperatives. This is to say nothing of the more explicitly maqasidi approaches of Tunisian and Moroccan Islamists, with their emphasis on the purpose and objectives (maqasid) of sharia rather than the letter of the law.

The gap, then, between Brotherhood and Salafi organizations can be quite large. For this reason, once someone commits to a distinctly Salafi brand of Islam, they become more resistant to Brotherhood-type arguments. Theologically, they no longer speak the same language. Yet, quietist Salafis and jihadi-Salafis do speak if not the same language, then at least a similar one. This means that jihadi-Salafis are more likely to be persuaded by the arguments of other Salafis, including quietists, on questions of violence. Yet, similarly, quietists, because they share many of the same starting assumptions, may be susceptible to jihadi-Salafi arguments, particularly in contexts of religiously charged civil conflict where quietism becomes increasingly untenable.

It is difficult to be more precise, because claims of the efficacy of quietist outreach are largely anecdotal. And, there is the question of “religious” versus “political” motivations. Jihadi-Salafism may become appealing in places like Syria and Libya for reasons that have less to do with theology and more to do with power vacuums, the “normalization” of violence, and the fact that Jihadi-Salafi militias tend to be better equipped and more effective on the battlefield.

In short, because it can cut both ways, it would probably be unwise for governments to promote quietist Salafism as an “alternative.” To the extent that quietists want to promote themselves as alternatives, then governments should not block such activities, so as long as the quietists in question are acting through legal channels.

In between quietists who eschew politics and jihadi-Salafis who embrace violence, there is a third group: Salafis who opt to participate in the parliamentary process, something that we’ve seen perhaps most strikingly with the Nour party in Egypt, which won 28 percent of the popular vote in the 2011 elections. If Egypt had remained at least somewhat democratic, it would have been an interesting test case. If the Nour party had remained a powerful political actor with real influence, one can imagine the arguments of would-be jihadis attracting less sympathy (although how much less is hard to say). The key consideration here isn’t just the level of democracy, but also the perception among Salafis that they can, in fact, influence policy and legislation through the democratic process. In Egypt, this is something Salafis had, although that came with its own cost of dragging the country’s politics further to the right and deepening already high levels of polarization.

In early analyses of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the issue of religious education rose quickly to prominence. Discussions of causation implicated religious schools, in educationally underserved areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, although the 19 men associated with the attack had not attended these institutions. The accusations led to the simple Arabic word madrassa (a school) becoming a negative term.

Religious education courses in Saudi Arabia, and the ministry textbooks used in these courses, came under the microscope for allegedly fostering hatreds that may have motivated the attacks. These ideas circulated widely and caused a ripple effect. Within weeks, Muslim private schools in the United States—of which there are fewer than two hundred, most less than 20 years old—also came under suspicion.

As an educator working in both private and public school settings, I noted journalists’ surprise upon hearing that Muslim schools teach “the 3 R’s” (reading, writing, and arithmetic) alongside religion classes, and that nearly all such schools in the United States actually follow local public school curriculum, though they are not legally required to. The number of Muslim schools in the United States was overstated in the press, with little attempt among journalists to correct the reports based on empirical studies.

As the tide of Islamophobia in the United States rose in the decade after 9/11, critics of multicultural education latched onto the notion that teaching about Islam in public school textbooks and classrooms might be implicated in the existential national security threat. Initial arguments maintained that coverage of Islam in textbooks—like coverage of all world religions, only recently expanded from briefest mention—was excessively positive.

Subsequent arguments expressed alarm that textbooks excessively covered Islam at the expense of other religions, especially Christianity. Claims were made that the textbooks appear to proselytize Islam while being excessively critical of Christian history. Making these claims required a measure of manipulation of the facts about textbooks, state standards, and curriculum that lent these arguments little credibility. In the absence of solid evidence, supporters of this line of thinking appealed to activists who have been approaching public school boards to put pressure on textbook publishers, teachers, and district administrators. This process is still ongoing in Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona, for example.

In Europe, religious education related to Islam has come under scrutiny for similar reasons, but the emphasis differs with the role played by religious education in various national systems. In the United States, the constitution prohibits publicly funded religious education and permits only the academic study of religions. In contrast, some European countries include normative religious instruction conducted by teachers trained in schools of theology, using a curriculum devised by religious institutions.

These courses have expanded the choices open to pupils who do not belong to national or majority denominations, so that they now include normative instruction on Judaism, Islam, and other faiths. The most interesting of these European developments are efforts by national or provincial governments to shape what is taught about Islam to prevent negative effects of education (intolerance, for example). Other European countries treat religion from a historical and cultural perspective.

Some arguments against religious education single out teaching about Islam, but rarely note that Islam is not taught in isolation within the secular curriculum, or in nations that include religious instruction in schools. Curriculum on world religions reflects a consensus that students living in pluralistic societies in a globalizing world need to be literate about all religious traditions. Critics fail to mention that knowledge of basic beliefs, practices, and history of the Christian tradition should not be taken for granted even for children belonging to majority populations.

Decisions on teaching minority religions should not be confined to Islam. The soundest of the First Amendment guidelines for teaching about religion is the concept of teaching authentically about the basics, but without asserting truth claims or making qualitative comparisons. Authentic teaching about religion requires respect for accuracy and responsibility for balanced coverage of diversity and change over time.

This requires more systematic teacher education than we have today. Constructive efforts in this direction require setting aside notions of competition among religions. Religious education should recognize the existence of common and divergent values and historical processes rather than aiming to create a curio-cabinet of student knowledge about exotic practices and terminology.

A forthcoming paper by Jenny Berglund, “Publicly funded Islamic education in Europe and the United States,” to be launched this Thursday, April 2, lays a factual foundation for rational discussion of these varied and nuanced issues. As Western nations grapple with the role of religion in civic life, they will need to clarify how education on religion relates to the secular nation-state and its objectives while taking into account the needs of citizens to find a basis for living constructively within a common civic space. Religiously literate citizens might be able to find a basis for productive collaboration toward the solution of common problems rather than exacerbating divisions by exclusionary thinking and pressure to abandon their practice of faith as a constructive mode of life.

Authors

In early analyses of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the issue of religious education rose quickly to prominence. Discussions of causation implicated religious schools, in educationally underserved areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, although the 19 men associated with the attack had not attended these institutions. The accusations led to the simple Arabic word madrassa (a school) becoming a negative term.

Religious education courses in Saudi Arabia, and the ministry textbooks used in these courses, came under the microscope for allegedly fostering hatreds that may have motivated the attacks. These ideas circulated widely and caused a ripple effect. Within weeks, Muslim private schools in the United States—of which there are fewer than two hundred, most less than 20 years old—also came under suspicion.

As an educator working in both private and public school settings, I noted journalists’ surprise upon hearing that Muslim schools teach “the 3 R’s” (reading, writing, and arithmetic) alongside religion classes, and that nearly all such schools in the United States actually follow local public school curriculum, though they are not legally required to. The number of Muslim schools in the United States was overstated in the press, with little attempt among journalists to correct the reports based on empirical studies.

As the tide of Islamophobia in the United States rose in the decade after 9/11, critics of multicultural education latched onto the notion that teaching about Islam in public school textbooks and classrooms might be implicated in the existential national security threat. Initial arguments maintained that coverage of Islam in textbooks—like coverage of all world religions, only recently expanded from briefest mention—was excessively positive.

Subsequent arguments expressed alarm that textbooks excessively covered Islam at the expense of other religions, especially Christianity. Claims were made that the textbooks appear to proselytize Islam while being excessively critical of Christian history. Making these claims required a measure of manipulation of the facts about textbooks, state standards, and curriculum that lent these arguments little credibility. In the absence of solid evidence, supporters of this line of thinking appealed to activists who have been approaching public school boards to put pressure on textbook publishers, teachers, and district administrators. This process is still ongoing in Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona, for example.

In Europe, religious education related to Islam has come under scrutiny for similar reasons, but the emphasis differs with the role played by religious education in various national systems. In the United States, the constitution prohibits publicly funded religious education and permits only the academic study of religions. In contrast, some European countries include normative religious instruction conducted by teachers trained in schools of theology, using a curriculum devised by religious institutions.

These courses have expanded the choices open to pupils who do not belong to national or majority denominations, so that they now include normative instruction on Judaism, Islam, and other faiths. The most interesting of these European developments are efforts by national or provincial governments to shape what is taught about Islam to prevent negative effects of education (intolerance, for example). Other European countries treat religion from a historical and cultural perspective.

Some arguments against religious education single out teaching about Islam, but rarely note that Islam is not taught in isolation within the secular curriculum, or in nations that include religious instruction in schools. Curriculum on world religions reflects a consensus that students living in pluralistic societies in a globalizing world need to be literate about all religious traditions. Critics fail to mention that knowledge of basic beliefs, practices, and history of the Christian tradition should not be taken for granted even for children belonging to majority populations.

Decisions on teaching minority religions should not be confined to Islam. The soundest of the First Amendment guidelines for teaching about religion is the concept of teaching authentically about the basics, but without asserting truth claims or making qualitative comparisons. Authentic teaching about religion requires respect for accuracy and responsibility for balanced coverage of diversity and change over time.

This requires more systematic teacher education than we have today. Constructive efforts in this direction require setting aside notions of competition among religions. Religious education should recognize the existence of common and divergent values and historical processes rather than aiming to create a curio-cabinet of student knowledge about exotic practices and terminology.

A forthcoming paper by Jenny Berglund, “Publicly funded Islamic education in Europe and the United States,” to be launched this Thursday, April 2, lays a factual foundation for rational discussion of these varied and nuanced issues. As Western nations grapple with the role of religion in civic life, they will need to clarify how education on religion relates to the secular nation-state and its objectives while taking into account the needs of citizens to find a basis for living constructively within a common civic space. Religiously literate citizens might be able to find a basis for productive collaboration toward the solution of common problems rather than exacerbating divisions by exclusionary thinking and pressure to abandon their practice of faith as a constructive mode of life.

Authors

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http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/03/27-yemen-houthis-gcc-saudia-arabia?rssid=islamic+world{F22B2AE5-74FC-4818-9198-880B7BF1225E}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/87755119/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Around-the-halls-The-developing-situation-in-YemenAround the halls: The developing situation in Yemen

In the wake of continuing chaos in Yemen, and the decision of a ten-country coalition—led by Saudi Arabia—to conduct airstrikes against Houthi fighters in Yemen, Brookings experts had a candid dialogue about the developing situation. Below is an edited version of that conversation.

Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
This is an extraordinary step:

A direct attack by Sunni Arab states on an Iranian-backed militia;

The first time the GCC has taken military action outside its own membership; and

The return of Egypt to fighting on Yemeni territory.

By the way, Bruce, didn’t we have a conversation just recently about the prospect of Egypt providing an expeditionary force for the GCC states? It feels momentous for the trajectory of the region. Some questions:

Could this campaign distract Sunni governments, and perhaps the United States, from the fight vs ISIS in Iraq and Jordan?

Will Iran double down on the Houthis?

What will AQAP do?

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program:
Air strikes will not defeat the Houthis, and they are too late to save Aden. Are the Saudis prepared to put boots on the ground? Is Cairo?

Kenneth Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
That's the danger! Their boots on the ground won't solve the problem either—it will just bog them down in a Yemeni quagmire.

Bruce Riedel:
What are the implications for a nuclear deal? Can you sign a deal with Tehran while your Sunni allies are at war with Iran's proxy in Yemen? And you are giving their Iraqi Shia allies air support in Tikrit?

Tamara Cofman Wittes:
President Obama last August cited Yemen as a model for the United States’ intended counterterrorism approach in Iraq. Maybe the "Yemen model" has a different meaning now: cede the territory to those most willing to bleed for it.

I really wonder how AQAP plays this. Saudi intervention seems like a golden opportunity for them.

Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program :
I'll add to this only that I can't figure out what the Islamic State presence is in Yemen. If big, AQAP has a problem in that the Islamic State will push the sectarian button better, so AQAP will have a serious local rival.

Salman Shaikh, Fellow, Director, Brookings Doha Center and Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
I've said that the United States has the difficult job, like it or not, to play both referee between Saudi and Iran and ally to its traditional friends in the region. Not easy, I know, but there should have been a much greater effort earlier to push back on Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the region. Saudis and others have been warning for quite some time. Instead, the United States is yet again a "reactive" Middle East power, supporting different (opposing) folks in different places.

I also wonder how secure is Saudi Arabia? Houthis may carry out their threats to attack Saudi. If this carries on, we must keep an eye on dissent within Saudi.

Neither do I rule out Sunnis dissent within Iran's western regions. There have been signs of that recently.

Saudi, I was told, is looking to build a very broad regional coalition to counter Iranian expansionism, which includes Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt.

I also see that 10 countries have pledged support to the Saudis for Yemen, including Jordan, Sudan, Morocco, in addition to Egypt and Pakistan. The Saudis will have to pay for them all.

The Yemeni conflict is now clearly part of a broader regional conflagration. For that reason there is an urgent need to plug the Syrian volcano. Renewed focus on a Syrian a Syrian political transition can contribute to de-escalating regional tensions.

Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
I take a different position than Salman, both with respect to the characterization of Iranian ambitions and the criticism of the Obama administration. As Bruce Riedel has written, Iran's involvement in Yemen is marginal and opportunistic. They didn't invent the Houthi uprising and their investment has been relatively small scale in comparison to other conflicts. Which is why you have never seen a Qassem Soleimani selfie from Aden or anywhere in the vicinity, and you never will. Tehran's real interests lie elsewhere, in Iraq and Syria. I would imagine they will aim to continue to exploit what is likely to remain a very unsettled situation in Yemen. But that hardly qualifies as hegemonic.

As for the United States, I don't know of an American administration that has been anything other than reactive vis-à-vis Yemen. Unfortunately (especially for Yemenis) I think Yemen will simply never rise to the level of a priority that commands proactive American intercession—except if the threat of AQAP is resurgent, which of course may be an inadvertent outcome of the GCC strikes.

My guess is that the Obama administration sees a net benefit in enabling the Saudis to flex their muscles on an issue which is existential, or close to it, for Riyadh but relatively low-priority for the rest of the world. Heck, Washington may have even encouraged this outcome: let the Gulf vent its spleen about the cozy conversations between Secretary John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in an arena where they cannot do much additional harm to core United States interests in the region. Meanwhile, the nuclear talks will go on—even if the Iranians can't close the deal—and Washington will focus its energies on IS and Iraq, in parallel to Iran's campaign there.

In my view, the real problem is that Saudi interventions across the region—military and financial—are no less forceful than those of Iran, and they are not inherently stabilizing, except perhaps in the short run.

I can't yet puzzle out how this is likely to impact the Iranian nuclear talks. I'm tempted to say not at all; the negotiations are really silo-ed on both sides, and if they can finally get to a credible formula, I think that producing a somewhat general, possibly unwritten "political framework" is not a terribly high hurdle. There would still be plenty of time for this to crash and burn before June 30th. On the other hand, the Iranian leadership sees the nuclear issue as firmly enmeshed within a broader web of United States efforts to undermine the regime, and it seems conceivable that the United States-sanctified Saudi attack on an Iranian client/ally — undertaken at the precise moment that Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani had to yield the Tikrit battle to United States air strikes would intensify Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei's hesitation about accepting a deal that the hard-liners in his security bureaucracy will see as a capitulation to the West.

Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Foreign Policy program:
One thing though to keep in mind, separate from the big unknown (and potentially disastrous) consequences for Yemen. This is a huge development for Arab politics that will test the bargain that the Saudis sought at the outset of the Arab Uprisings: luring Morocco and Jordan into a support relationship with the GCC: money for security support. That now includes Egypt (and a lot of symbolic Sunni countries such as Sudan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Authority). There is no doubt the Saudis took the lead on this, that they consolidated the support of GCC (with the exception of Oman) which has propelled them into uncharted leadership territory. Regardless of how it all ends in Yemen, the path will be bloody with a lot of unintended consequences. If ground forces will ultimately be needed from Egypt and Jordan, this could obviously have consequences well beyond Gulf.

The Iranian issue will become more prominent, although I doubt Iran will do any more than provide some backing from the outside in the early stages. But it sets up a tone in the Saudi-Iranian competition that will have impact elsewhere.

The Saudis may also feel that they need to start showing that they are a serious military player; despite investing tens of billions on arms, few people in the region take their power seriously and many wonder what they have done with these resources. They may feel this is an opportunity to register their arrival— but if they are seen to fail, they stand to lose a great deal.

As far as the Egyptian role, it is already generating a heated discussion among Egyptian commentators, for and against, with comparison to Egypt's intervention in the 1960s.

Bruce Riedel:
The Saudis have told me the coalition includes Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Jordan and Pakistan. Notably absent is Oman, which has a border with Yemen.

Aircraft from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Sudan, Morocco and Jordan are part of the air coalition with RSAF. Absent are Pakistan and Egypt so far.

Saudi sources are adamant they don't need foreign ground troops, they can do the ground war alone; 150,000 Army, SANG and MOI troops available they claim. Of course, they don't want to admit Pakistan turned them down two weeks ago.

Operational command of the coalition is in the hands of the Minister of Defense Prince Muhammad bin Salman, 34, the King’s son. He toured the Saudi border provinces over the weekend to prepare the operation.

Among the many odd aspects of this story is the Saudi announcement. Has any country ever announced it is going to war using as its spokesman an ambassador stationed in a foreign country thousands of miles away? Why not the King, Crown Prince or Foreign Minister speaking in Riyadh to the Saudi people? So far they have not spoken.

The Omani absence is also driven by the Sultan’s health question. Although he returned to Muscat on Monday after months in Germany, he has yet to speak to the Omani people. Reports that his health is fully restored and he is cured of cancer are probably wishful thinking.

Pakistan’s absence is also notable. Officially the Pakistani government is “considering” the Saudi appeal for assistance. Like Oman Pakistan shares a border with Iran and is more cautious about how far to jump on the Saudi bandwagon.

In the wake of continuing chaos in Yemen, and the decision of a ten-country coalition—led by Saudi Arabia—to conduct airstrikes against Houthi fighters in Yemen, Brookings experts had a candid dialogue about the developing situation. Below is an edited version of that conversation.

Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
This is an extraordinary step:

A direct attack by Sunni Arab states on an Iranian-backed militia;

The first time the GCC has taken military action outside its own membership; and

The return of Egypt to fighting on Yemeni territory.

By the way, Bruce, didn’t we have a conversation just recently about the prospect of Egypt providing an expeditionary force for the GCC states? It feels momentous for the trajectory of the region. Some questions:

Could this campaign distract Sunni governments, and perhaps the United States, from the fight vs ISIS in Iraq and Jordan?

Will Iran double down on the Houthis?

What will AQAP do?

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program:
Air strikes will not defeat the Houthis, and they are too late to save Aden. Are the Saudis prepared to put boots on the ground? Is Cairo?

Kenneth Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
That's the danger! Their boots on the ground won't solve the problem either—it will just bog them down in a Yemeni quagmire.

Bruce Riedel:
What are the implications for a nuclear deal? Can you sign a deal with Tehran while your Sunni allies are at war with Iran's proxy in Yemen? And you are giving their Iraqi Shia allies air support in Tikrit?

Tamara Cofman Wittes:
President Obama last August cited Yemen as a model for the United States’ intended counterterrorism approach in Iraq. Maybe the "Yemen model" has a different meaning now: cede the territory to those most willing to bleed for it.

I really wonder how AQAP plays this. Saudi intervention seems like a golden opportunity for them.

Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow and Director of Research, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program :
I'll add to this only that I can't figure out what the Islamic State presence is in Yemen. If big, AQAP has a problem in that the Islamic State will push the sectarian button better, so AQAP will have a serious local rival.

Salman Shaikh, Fellow, Director, Brookings Doha Center and Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
I've said that the United States has the difficult job, like it or not, to play both referee between Saudi and Iran and ally to its traditional friends in the region. Not easy, I know, but there should have been a much greater effort earlier to push back on Iran's hegemonic ambitions in the region. Saudis and others have been warning for quite some time. Instead, the United States is yet again a "reactive" Middle East power, supporting different (opposing) folks in different places.

I also wonder how secure is Saudi Arabia? Houthis may carry out their threats to attack Saudi. If this carries on, we must keep an eye on dissent within Saudi.

Neither do I rule out Sunnis dissent within Iran's western regions. There have been signs of that recently.

Saudi, I was told, is looking to build a very broad regional coalition to counter Iranian expansionism, which includes Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt.

I also see that 10 countries have pledged support to the Saudis for Yemen, including Jordan, Sudan, Morocco, in addition to Egypt and Pakistan. The Saudis will have to pay for them all.

The Yemeni conflict is now clearly part of a broader regional conflagration. For that reason there is an urgent need to plug the Syrian volcano. Renewed focus on a Syrian a Syrian political transition can contribute to de-escalating regional tensions.

Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:
I take a different position than Salman, both with respect to the characterization of Iranian ambitions and the criticism of the Obama administration. As Bruce Riedel has written, Iran's involvement in Yemen is marginal and opportunistic. They didn't invent the Houthi uprising and their investment has been relatively small scale in comparison to other conflicts. Which is why you have never seen a Qassem Soleimani selfie from Aden or anywhere in the vicinity, and you never will. Tehran's real interests lie elsewhere, in Iraq and Syria. I would imagine they will aim to continue to exploit what is likely to remain a very unsettled situation in Yemen. But that hardly qualifies as hegemonic.

As for the United States, I don't know of an American administration that has been anything other than reactive vis-à-vis Yemen. Unfortunately (especially for Yemenis) I think Yemen will simply never rise to the level of a priority that commands proactive American intercession—except if the threat of AQAP is resurgent, which of course may be an inadvertent outcome of the GCC strikes.

My guess is that the Obama administration sees a net benefit in enabling the Saudis to flex their muscles on an issue which is existential, or close to it, for Riyadh but relatively low-priority for the rest of the world. Heck, Washington may have even encouraged this outcome: let the Gulf vent its spleen about the cozy conversations between Secretary John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in an arena where they cannot do much additional harm to core United States interests in the region. Meanwhile, the nuclear talks will go on—even if the Iranians can't close the deal—and Washington will focus its energies on IS and Iraq, in parallel to Iran's campaign there.

In my view, the real problem is that Saudi interventions across the region—military and financial—are no less forceful than those of Iran, and they are not inherently stabilizing, except perhaps in the short run.

I can't yet puzzle out how this is likely to impact the Iranian nuclear talks. I'm tempted to say not at all; the negotiations are really silo-ed on both sides, and if they can finally get to a credible formula, I think that producing a somewhat general, possibly unwritten "political framework" is not a terribly high hurdle. There would still be plenty of time for this to crash and burn before June 30th. On the other hand, the Iranian leadership sees the nuclear issue as firmly enmeshed within a broader web of United States efforts to undermine the regime, and it seems conceivable that the United States-sanctified Saudi attack on an Iranian client/ally — undertaken at the precise moment that Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani had to yield the Tikrit battle to United States air strikes would intensify Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei's hesitation about accepting a deal that the hard-liners in his security bureaucracy will see as a capitulation to the West.

Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Foreign Policy program:
One thing though to keep in mind, separate from the big unknown (and potentially disastrous) consequences for Yemen. This is a huge development for Arab politics that will test the bargain that the Saudis sought at the outset of the Arab Uprisings: luring Morocco and Jordan into a support relationship with the GCC: money for security support. That now includes Egypt (and a lot of symbolic Sunni countries such as Sudan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Authority). There is no doubt the Saudis took the lead on this, that they consolidated the support of GCC (with the exception of Oman) which has propelled them into uncharted leadership territory. Regardless of how it all ends in Yemen, the path will be bloody with a lot of unintended consequences. If ground forces will ultimately be needed from Egypt and Jordan, this could obviously have consequences well beyond Gulf.

The Iranian issue will become more prominent, although I doubt Iran will do any more than provide some backing from the outside in the early stages. But it sets up a tone in the Saudi-Iranian competition that will have impact elsewhere.

The Saudis may also feel that they need to start showing that they are a serious military player; despite investing tens of billions on arms, few people in the region take their power seriously and many wonder what they have done with these resources. They may feel this is an opportunity to register their arrival— but if they are seen to fail, they stand to lose a great deal.

As far as the Egyptian role, it is already generating a heated discussion among Egyptian commentators, for and against, with comparison to Egypt's intervention in the 1960s.

Bruce Riedel:
The Saudis have told me the coalition includes Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Jordan and Pakistan. Notably absent is Oman, which has a border with Yemen.

Aircraft from Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Sudan, Morocco and Jordan are part of the air coalition with RSAF. Absent are Pakistan and Egypt so far.

Saudi sources are adamant they don't need foreign ground troops, they can do the ground war alone; 150,000 Army, SANG and MOI troops available they claim. Of course, they don't want to admit Pakistan turned them down two weeks ago.

Operational command of the coalition is in the hands of the Minister of Defense Prince Muhammad bin Salman, 34, the King’s son. He toured the Saudi border provinces over the weekend to prepare the operation.

Among the many odd aspects of this story is the Saudi announcement. Has any country ever announced it is going to war using as its spokesman an ambassador stationed in a foreign country thousands of miles away? Why not the King, Crown Prince or Foreign Minister speaking in Riyadh to the Saudi people? So far they have not spoken.

The Omani absence is also driven by the Sultan’s health question. Although he returned to Muscat on Monday after months in Germany, he has yet to speak to the Omani people. Reports that his health is fully restored and he is cured of cancer are probably wishful thinking.

Pakistan’s absence is also notable. Officially the Pakistani government is “considering” the Saudi appeal for assistance. Like Oman Pakistan shares a border with Iran and is more cautious about how far to jump on the Saudi bandwagon.

Will McCants: One of the reasons Graeme Wood’s article on the Islamic State in the Atlantic stirred controversy is his statement that “the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” Graeme was careful to explain what he meant, but the phrase left the impression that the Islamic State embodied Islamic ideals. “Islamic” is too broad a category. Other categories wouldn’t have worked either. One could also say the Islamic State is “very Sunni” and “very Salafi” but those would be inexact too.

Rather than rehash the debate, I thought we could get a better sense of the relationship between the Islamic State and Islamic scripture if we answer a narrower question: how does the Islamic State approach scripture? By scripture, I mean the Quran and the hadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad and his Companions.

First up was Cole Bunzel, who wrote that ISIS maintains an online network of religious scholars who seek to legitimate the group’s hardline worldview through scripture, grounding ISIS’s actions in an extremist but historical interpretation of Islamic texts.

In the midst of the sturm und drang following the publication of Graeme's article, Sohaira Siddiqui wrote a thoughtful post for Jadaliyya on how the Islamic State approaches the medieval scholastic tradition of Islamic jurisprudence. She’s an assistant professor of Islamic theology at Georgetown University's Qatar campus, so she’s got a lot to say on the subject of the Islamic State’s use of scripture.

Sohaira Siddiqui: When reading materials released by ISIS or legal verdicts produced by their courts, ISIS relies upon various sources: sacred texts, namely the Quran and hadith, and the actions of the Prophet’s early companions and subsequent generations. These laws can be understood to either enhance the “dignity” of Muslims, to strike fear in the hearts and minds of their enemies, or to create a religiously ordered society.

The use of scriptural sources and history is not only important for religiously legitimizing their actions, it also promotes their overall objectives. In other words, they subject scripture and history for their own political and religious motivations. Thus far, when Islamic scholars have assessed ISIS’s use of scripture, many have asserted that ISIS is literal and also cherry-picks from scripture to fulfill their desired objectives. While I agree, I would argue that ISIS ago engages with purpose based reasoning and thus often steps away from the literal meaning of texts when necessary.

For example, in rationalizing the burning of the Jordanian pilot, ISIS first pointed to airstrikes carried out against Muslims, then referenced verse 126 in Sura al-Nahl which allows for commensurate retaliation, and finally ended with examples from the time of the Prophet and companions in which fire is used. In this case, an analogy is constructed between the effects of an airstrike and the deliberate burning of an individual. Here elements of purposive, not textual, reasoning are involved; that is striking fear into the minds of the enemies. To deliberately set alight an individual has only a tendentious link to the launch of missiles. Thus what appears to be a literal application of the right of commensurate punishment becomes more nuanced when analyzed in greater detail.

Let us take another case which shows ISIS to go beyond the literal meaning of the text in order to suit their objectives. In part the notoriety that ISIS possesses is due to their propaganda videos and images which depict life within ISIS controlled areas. This depiction of human images, however, is contrary to a literalist reading of numerous prophetic hadith -- found in the canonical collection of Bukhari and Muslim -- which forbid the creation of pictures and the replication of the human image. In fact, many of the scholars which ISIS quote to support their actions vehemently prohibit the capturing of the human image. Their abandonment of explicit hadith demonstrates that they adopt a legal methodology which is scripturally-centric and literal, but flexible if literalism alone will circumvent their objectives.

Combining reasoning from texts with purpose based reasoning is not something ISIS has newly invented. Classical jurists in the 11th century articulated that there are certain objectives of the Sharia, namely the preservation of life, religion, lineage, property and honor. While jurists were continuously engaged in deriving laws from the sources, the presence of these objectives functioned as a check and balance system which ensured that the laws they generated were in accordance with the objectives of the law as understood by God. These objectives were therefore derived from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet and were understood to represent divine intent with regards to the law. However, when ISIS is using purpose based reasoning, they are not concerned with what is the divine intent of the law is; rather they are concerned with creating laws which fulfill their own political desires. In this sense, what ISIS is engaged in resembles more religiously legitimated political reasoning than any attempt to holistically understand the texts or the overall objectives of the law.

Authors

Will McCants: One of the reasons Graeme Wood’s article on the Islamic State in the Atlantic stirred controversy is his statement that “the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” Graeme was careful to explain what he meant, but the phrase left the impression that the Islamic State embodied Islamic ideals. “Islamic” is too broad a category. Other categories wouldn’t have worked either. One could also say the Islamic State is “very Sunni” and “very Salafi” but those would be inexact too.

Rather than rehash the debate, I thought we could get a better sense of the relationship between the Islamic State and Islamic scripture if we answer a narrower question: how does the Islamic State approach scripture? By scripture, I mean the Quran and the hadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad and his Companions.

First up was Cole Bunzel, who wrote that ISIS maintains an online network of religious scholars who seek to legitimate the group’s hardline worldview through scripture, grounding ISIS’s actions in an extremist but historical interpretation of Islamic texts.

In the midst of the sturm und drang following the publication of Graeme's article, Sohaira Siddiqui wrote a thoughtful post for Jadaliyya on how the Islamic State approaches the medieval scholastic tradition of Islamic jurisprudence. She’s an assistant professor of Islamic theology at Georgetown University's Qatar campus, so she’s got a lot to say on the subject of the Islamic State’s use of scripture.

Sohaira Siddiqui: When reading materials released by ISIS or legal verdicts produced by their courts, ISIS relies upon various sources: sacred texts, namely the Quran and hadith, and the actions of the Prophet’s early companions and subsequent generations. These laws can be understood to either enhance the “dignity” of Muslims, to strike fear in the hearts and minds of their enemies, or to create a religiously ordered society.

The use of scriptural sources and history is not only important for religiously legitimizing their actions, it also promotes their overall objectives. In other words, they subject scripture and history for their own political and religious motivations. Thus far, when Islamic scholars have assessed ISIS’s use of scripture, many have asserted that ISIS is literal and also cherry-picks from scripture to fulfill their desired objectives. While I agree, I would argue that ISIS ago engages with purpose based reasoning and thus often steps away from the literal meaning of texts when necessary.

For example, in rationalizing the burning of the Jordanian pilot, ISIS first pointed to airstrikes carried out against Muslims, then referenced verse 126 in Sura al-Nahl which allows for commensurate retaliation, and finally ended with examples from the time of the Prophet and companions in which fire is used. In this case, an analogy is constructed between the effects of an airstrike and the deliberate burning of an individual. Here elements of purposive, not textual, reasoning are involved; that is striking fear into the minds of the enemies. To deliberately set alight an individual has only a tendentious link to the launch of missiles. Thus what appears to be a literal application of the right of commensurate punishment becomes more nuanced when analyzed in greater detail.

Let us take another case which shows ISIS to go beyond the literal meaning of the text in order to suit their objectives. In part the notoriety that ISIS possesses is due to their propaganda videos and images which depict life within ISIS controlled areas. This depiction of human images, however, is contrary to a literalist reading of numerous prophetic hadith -- found in the canonical collection of Bukhari and Muslim -- which forbid the creation of pictures and the replication of the human image. In fact, many of the scholars which ISIS quote to support their actions vehemently prohibit the capturing of the human image. Their abandonment of explicit hadith demonstrates that they adopt a legal methodology which is scripturally-centric and literal, but flexible if literalism alone will circumvent their objectives.

Combining reasoning from texts with purpose based reasoning is not something ISIS has newly invented. Classical jurists in the 11th century articulated that there are certain objectives of the Sharia, namely the preservation of life, religion, lineage, property and honor. While jurists were continuously engaged in deriving laws from the sources, the presence of these objectives functioned as a check and balance system which ensured that the laws they generated were in accordance with the objectives of the law as understood by God. These objectives were therefore derived from the Quran and sayings of the Prophet and were understood to represent divine intent with regards to the law. However, when ISIS is using purpose based reasoning, they are not concerned with what is the divine intent of the law is; rather they are concerned with creating laws which fulfill their own political desires. In this sense, what ISIS is engaged in resembles more religiously legitimated political reasoning than any attempt to holistically understand the texts or the overall objectives of the law.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2015/03/24-isis-state-of-terror-book-launch?rssid=islamic+world{5D0298A1-877A-4442-89AD-5D1CC3AEC7CC}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/87558892/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~ISIS-and-the-state-of-terror-The-genesis-evolution-and-impact-of-the-Islamic-StateISIS and the state of terror: The genesis, evolution, and impact of the Islamic State

Event Information

Though insurgent groups are a fixture of contemporary politics and warfare, the Islamic State or ISIS is unprecedented in its mix of brutality, media savvy, territorial gain, and recruitment.

In ISIS: The State of Terror, two of America’s leading experts on violent extremism and terrorism explain the genesis, evolution, and impact of the Islamic State. Drawing on their unique access to intelligence and law enforcement and through their own groundbreaking research, Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger detail ISIS’s strategies and techniques - and challenge our own conceptions of terrorism in a rapidly changing jihadi landscape.

Event Information

Though insurgent groups are a fixture of contemporary politics and warfare, the Islamic State or ISIS is unprecedented in its mix of brutality, media savvy, territorial gain, and recruitment.

In ISIS: The State of Terror, two of America’s leading experts on violent extremism and terrorism explain the genesis, evolution, and impact of the Islamic State. Drawing on their unique access to intelligence and law enforcement and through their own groundbreaking research, Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger detail ISIS’s strategies and techniques - and challenge our own conceptions of terrorism in a rapidly changing jihadi landscape.

Will McCants: One of the reasons Graeme Wood’s controversial article on the Islamic State in the Atlantic stirred controversy is his statement that “the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” Graeme was careful to explain what he meant, but the phrase left the impression that the Islamic State embodied Islamic ideals. “Islamic” is too broad a category. Other categories wouldn’t have worked either. One could also say the Islamic State is “very Sunni” and “very Salafi” but those would be inexact too.

Rather than rehash the debate, I thought we could get a better sense of the relationship between the Islamic State and Islamic scripture if we answer a narrower question: how does the Islamic State approach scripture? By scripture, I mean the Quran and the hadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad and his Companions.

The Islamic State is frequently criticized for cherry-picking Islamic scripture to justify its heinous deeds. There is merit to the criticism to the extent that we all suffer from bias when we read texts. But the criticism implies that the Islamic State is not just biased but cynical—only picking cherries that suit its purpose but deliberately leaving the rest to dangle on the tree. The Islamic State is not just ignorant of the Islamic legal tradition, the argument goes, but willfully misrepresenting it for the group’s own evil ends.

Cole Bunzel: It would be a mistake to think that there is no underlying methodology to the Islamic State’s approach to scripture. The group’s reading of religious texts, while sometimes appearing to reflect political rather than religious concerns, is not ex nihilo contrived. Its scholars and leaders adhere—often explicitly—to a distinct movement in Sunni Islamic political thought called Jihadi-Salafism.

This is a fringe movement, to be sure, but is by no means lacking for scholarly depth and productivity. A network of self-described scholars, publishing on websites and various outlets online, generates a daily output of books, essays, fatwas (Islamic rulings), and more. This is in addition to the Islamic State’s own ideological production.

Not all Jihadi-Salafis are Islamic State supporters; indeed, some of the most important ones routinely censure the group and support al-Qaida. Nonetheless, Jihadi-Salafi ideology is the necessary starting point for understanding the group’s approach to scripture.

Jihadi-Salafism developed over the course of the later 20th century, combining elements of radical Muslim Brotherhood activism with aspects of the purist Salafi tradition predominant in Saudi Arabia. By the end of the millennium, the Salafi elements prevailed. Non-Salafi thinkers like the Brotherhood’s Sayyid Qutb became more-or-less ancestral figures. The movement increasingly focused on upholding the tenets of the strict Salafi theology or creed—a set of obligatory beliefs propounded most forcefully by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), who held strong sectarian views.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the forerunner group to the Islamic State, exemplified this trend in the late 1990s, when he distanced himself from Osama bin Laden, a man he deemed theologically deficient. Today the Islamic State continues this trend: most of the group’s publications draw on Salafi-Wahhabi thinkers, and its chief scholar casts the Islamic State as the true bearer of the Salafi tradition with its emphasis on dissociating from “unbelievers” and waging jihad against “heretics” (particularly the Shia).

In contrast to its approach on theological matters, the Islamic State’s use of scripture is more flexible—and thus less predictable—when it comes to matters of law. Its legal methodology can be called Salafi in the sense that it is not premised on one of the four Sunni Muslim legal schools and it emphasizes direct engagement with the Quran and traditions of the Prophet. Its views on administration and governance, for example, as expounded in a seminal 2007 treatise, rely on a range of sources from across the Sunni legal tradition. This treatise invokes the non-Salafi scholar Juwayni (d. 1085), for example, for the obligation of appointing an imam (or pseudo-caliph) posthaste. Likewise, in the June 2014 caliphate declaration the official Islamic State spokesman invoked another non-Salafi authority, Qurtubi (d. 1273), to establish the same obligation.

A collection of fatwas issued by the Islamic State further exemplifies this legal approach. In issuing a ruling, the authors directly interface with scripture and arrive at an individual judgment. Yet they are also keen to situate their rulings within the broader Islamic legal tradition, pointing out the different positions taken by various legal scholars and schools over time. Sometimes their rulings reflect minority opinions from the tradition, as was the case with justifying the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, and the group seizes on those opinions to make its case.

The Islamic State’s approach to scripture—and to the theological and legal traditions surrounding it—can be summed up as follows: In matters of theology, the group promotes a strict and uncompromising understanding of the Salafi creed. Muslims who hold the wrong beliefs can and must be killed. On matters of law, the group cuts its own way within the larger legal tradition, often invoking premodern legal authorities whose positions accord with its own. Certainly, the Islamic State’s use of scripture is selective, but rarely is scripture simply plucked from the texts.

Authors

Will McCants: One of the reasons Graeme Wood’s controversial article on the Islamic State in the Atlantic stirred controversy is his statement that “the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” Graeme was careful to explain what he meant, but the phrase left the impression that the Islamic State embodied Islamic ideals. “Islamic” is too broad a category. Other categories wouldn’t have worked either. One could also say the Islamic State is “very Sunni” and “very Salafi” but those would be inexact too.

Rather than rehash the debate, I thought we could get a better sense of the relationship between the Islamic State and Islamic scripture if we answer a narrower question: how does the Islamic State approach scripture? By scripture, I mean the Quran and the hadith, the words and deeds attributed to Muhammad and his Companions.

The Islamic State is frequently criticized for cherry-picking Islamic scripture to justify its heinous deeds. There is merit to the criticism to the extent that we all suffer from bias when we read texts. But the criticism implies that the Islamic State is not just biased but cynical—only picking cherries that suit its purpose but deliberately leaving the rest to dangle on the tree. The Islamic State is not just ignorant of the Islamic legal tradition, the argument goes, but willfully misrepresenting it for the group’s own evil ends.

Cole Bunzel: It would be a mistake to think that there is no underlying methodology to the Islamic State’s approach to scripture. The group’s reading of religious texts, while sometimes appearing to reflect political rather than religious concerns, is not ex nihilo contrived. Its scholars and leaders adhere—often explicitly—to a distinct movement in Sunni Islamic political thought called Jihadi-Salafism.

This is a fringe movement, to be sure, but is by no means lacking for scholarly depth and productivity. A network of self-described scholars, publishing on websites and various outlets online, generates a daily output of books, essays, fatwas (Islamic rulings), and more. This is in addition to the Islamic State’s own ideological production.

Not all Jihadi-Salafis are Islamic State supporters; indeed, some of the most important ones routinely censure the group and support al-Qaida. Nonetheless, Jihadi-Salafi ideology is the necessary starting point for understanding the group’s approach to scripture.

Jihadi-Salafism developed over the course of the later 20th century, combining elements of radical Muslim Brotherhood activism with aspects of the purist Salafi tradition predominant in Saudi Arabia. By the end of the millennium, the Salafi elements prevailed. Non-Salafi thinkers like the Brotherhood’s Sayyid Qutb became more-or-less ancestral figures. The movement increasingly focused on upholding the tenets of the strict Salafi theology or creed—a set of obligatory beliefs propounded most forcefully by Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), who held strong sectarian views.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the forerunner group to the Islamic State, exemplified this trend in the late 1990s, when he distanced himself from Osama bin Laden, a man he deemed theologically deficient. Today the Islamic State continues this trend: most of the group’s publications draw on Salafi-Wahhabi thinkers, and its chief scholar casts the Islamic State as the true bearer of the Salafi tradition with its emphasis on dissociating from “unbelievers” and waging jihad against “heretics” (particularly the Shia).

In contrast to its approach on theological matters, the Islamic State’s use of scripture is more flexible—and thus less predictable—when it comes to matters of law. Its legal methodology can be called Salafi in the sense that it is not premised on one of the four Sunni Muslim legal schools and it emphasizes direct engagement with the Quran and traditions of the Prophet. Its views on administration and governance, for example, as expounded in a seminal 2007 treatise, rely on a range of sources from across the Sunni legal tradition. This treatise invokes the non-Salafi scholar Juwayni (d. 1085), for example, for the obligation of appointing an imam (or pseudo-caliph) posthaste. Likewise, in the June 2014 caliphate declaration the official Islamic State spokesman invoked another non-Salafi authority, Qurtubi (d. 1273), to establish the same obligation.

A collection of fatwas issued by the Islamic State further exemplifies this legal approach. In issuing a ruling, the authors directly interface with scripture and arrive at an individual judgment. Yet they are also keen to situate their rulings within the broader Islamic legal tradition, pointing out the different positions taken by various legal scholars and schools over time. Sometimes their rulings reflect minority opinions from the tradition, as was the case with justifying the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, and the group seizes on those opinions to make its case.

The Islamic State’s approach to scripture—and to the theological and legal traditions surrounding it—can be summed up as follows: In matters of theology, the group promotes a strict and uncompromising understanding of the Salafi creed. Muslims who hold the wrong beliefs can and must be killed. On matters of law, the group cuts its own way within the larger legal tradition, often invoking premodern legal authorities whose positions accord with its own. Certainly, the Islamic State’s use of scripture is selective, but rarely is scripture simply plucked from the texts.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/03/23-islamic-state-ideology-propaganda?rssid=islamic+world{8D68091F-A447-4131-A113-12AB0D71834D}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/87524418/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Islamic-State-propaganda-and-how-to-counter-itIslamic State propaganda and how to counter it

Earlier this month, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World launched two analysis papers in a panel on the Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda moderated by the project’s director, William McCants. Cole Bunzel discussed his paper, From paper state to caliphate: The ideology of the Islamic State, which draws on private correspondence, speeches, and Islamic theology to outline the development of the Islamic State’s ideology. J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, authors of The ISIS Twitter census, presented the findings of their research on the demographics of the ISIS support network on Twitter, and how they participate in its highly organized online activities. Anastasia Norton, manager at Monitor 360 and an expert in counterterrorism strategic communications, joined the panel as a discussant.

Islamic State Belief

Cole Bunzel cited the Islamic State’s own sources and ideological material to trace the historical and theological evolution of the group. He described their brand of jihadi Salafism as a combination of Muslim Brotherhood activism with the takfiri elements of Wahhabism, and highlighted the demonization of the Shia as one of the primary and most effective parts of the ISIS narrative. When McCants asked him to elaborate on the specific Islamic traditions being invoked to justify their acts, Bunzel replied: “When it comes to acts of brutality, they will just look at any Islamic jurist over the fourteen centuries of Islam who might have said something favorable about immolation, for example… and so they quote these things.”

“When it comes to acts of brutality, they will just look at any Islamic jurist over the fourteen centuries of Islam who might have said something favorable about immolation, for example… and so they quote these things.”

— Cole Bunzel

Islamic State Behavior

Berger, who recently released a book, ISIS: State of Terror, discussed the propaganda strategies employed by the Islamic State online, particularly on social media. “Media is important to them. Projection is important to them. The projection of an image of strength is critical to the success that they are having… [this] is the reason we see ISIS succeeding in ways that al-Qaida didn’t.”

“Media is important to them. Projection is important to them. The projection of an image of strength is critical to the success that they are having… [this] is the reason we see ISIS succeeding in ways that al-Qaida didn’t.”

— J.M. Berger

According to Berger, Islamic State supporters flock to Twitter over Facebook or YouTube because it is the most visible the least inclined to interfere with the activity of its users. Norton noted the Islamic State’s adeptness at tailoring their messages to a wide variety of motivations, and McCants asked Berger to elaborate on these distinct streams of messaging. Berger agreed that the lslamic State knows audience matters, and it creates propaganda intended for specific viewers: violent videos attract recruits and intimidate local armies, and videos of markets and nursing homes appease local residents.

Morgan described how the Twitter Census project can trace the path of an online supporter and track their movement within the ISIS network, “What's really interesting about the types of data we were able to collect from a group that operates so heavily on a social network like Twitter is that we can, in effect, reduce radicalization to a numbers game. We are quantifying behavior in a way that wasn’t possible before…”

“What's really interesting about the types of data we were able to collect from a group that operates so heavily on a social network like Twitter is that we can, in effect, reduce radicalization to a numbers game. We are quantifying behavior in a way that wasn’t possible before…”

— Jonathon Morgan

Countering the Islamic State

The panelists touched on a number of ways to counter Islamic State propaganda. For Bunzel, the removal of key leaders would significantly hinder the group’s success. Berger spoke to the efficacy of suspending Twitter accounts that promote ISIS propaganda and explained complications with this approach. In addition to free speech issues and the loss of intelligence gathering opportunities, Berger noted, Twitter suspensions may further radicalize ISIS propaganda consumers by pushing them into insular online communities closed off to moderate outside voices. McCants asked Norton to explain how open source data gathering techniques like the Twitter Census methodology can change the way we analyze and counter terrorist propaganda. With these new techniques, Norton said “we now need a way to separate signal from noise,” to distinguish between belief and behavior. She argued that while efforts should aim to counter behavior rather than belief, there may be success in the promotion of counter narratives that religiously discredit the Islamic State.

Authors

Earlier this month, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World launched two analysis papers in a panel on the Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda moderated by the project’s director, William McCants. Cole Bunzel discussed his paper, From paper state to caliphate: The ideology of the Islamic State, which draws on private correspondence, speeches, and Islamic theology to outline the development of the Islamic State’s ideology. J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, authors of The ISIS Twitter census, presented the findings of their research on the demographics of the ISIS support network on Twitter, and how they participate in its highly organized online activities. Anastasia Norton, manager at Monitor 360 and an expert in counterterrorism strategic communications, joined the panel as a discussant.

Islamic State Belief

Cole Bunzel cited the Islamic State’s own sources and ideological material to trace the historical and theological evolution of the group. He described their brand of jihadi Salafism as a combination of Muslim Brotherhood activism with the takfiri elements of Wahhabism, and highlighted the demonization of the Shia as one of the primary and most effective parts of the ISIS narrative. When McCants asked him to elaborate on the specific Islamic traditions being invoked to justify their acts, Bunzel replied: “When it comes to acts of brutality, they will just look at any Islamic jurist over the fourteen centuries of Islam who might have said something favorable about immolation, for example… and so they quote these things.”

“When it comes to acts of brutality, they will just look at any Islamic jurist over the fourteen centuries of Islam who might have said something favorable about immolation, for example… and so they quote these things.”

— Cole Bunzel

Islamic State Behavior

Berger, who recently released a book, ISIS: State of Terror, discussed the propaganda strategies employed by the Islamic State online, particularly on social media. “Media is important to them. Projection is important to them. The projection of an image of strength is critical to the success that they are having… [this] is the reason we see ISIS succeeding in ways that al-Qaida didn’t.”

“Media is important to them. Projection is important to them. The projection of an image of strength is critical to the success that they are having… [this] is the reason we see ISIS succeeding in ways that al-Qaida didn’t.”

— J.M. Berger

According to Berger, Islamic State supporters flock to Twitter over Facebook or YouTube because it is the most visible the least inclined to interfere with the activity of its users. Norton noted the Islamic State’s adeptness at tailoring their messages to a wide variety of motivations, and McCants asked Berger to elaborate on these distinct streams of messaging. Berger agreed that the lslamic State knows audience matters, and it creates propaganda intended for specific viewers: violent videos attract recruits and intimidate local armies, and videos of markets and nursing homes appease local residents.

Morgan described how the Twitter Census project can trace the path of an online supporter and track their movement within the ISIS network, “What's really interesting about the types of data we were able to collect from a group that operates so heavily on a social network like Twitter is that we can, in effect, reduce radicalization to a numbers game. We are quantifying behavior in a way that wasn’t possible before…”

“What's really interesting about the types of data we were able to collect from a group that operates so heavily on a social network like Twitter is that we can, in effect, reduce radicalization to a numbers game. We are quantifying behavior in a way that wasn’t possible before…”

— Jonathon Morgan

Countering the Islamic State

The panelists touched on a number of ways to counter Islamic State propaganda. For Bunzel, the removal of key leaders would significantly hinder the group’s success. Berger spoke to the efficacy of suspending Twitter accounts that promote ISIS propaganda and explained complications with this approach. In addition to free speech issues and the loss of intelligence gathering opportunities, Berger noted, Twitter suspensions may further radicalize ISIS propaganda consumers by pushing them into insular online communities closed off to moderate outside voices. McCants asked Norton to explain how open source data gathering techniques like the Twitter Census methodology can change the way we analyze and counter terrorist propaganda. With these new techniques, Norton said “we now need a way to separate signal from noise,” to distinguish between belief and behavior. She argued that while efforts should aim to counter behavior rather than belief, there may be success in the promotion of counter narratives that religiously discredit the Islamic State.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/03/rethinking-islamism-salafis-antidote-joas-wagemakers?rssid=islamic+world{84518858-BF9E-428E-86CD-C6440391B533}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/87283052/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Experts-weigh-in-part-Is-quietist-Salafism-the-antidote-to-ISISExperts weigh in (part 3): Is quietist Salafism the antidote to ISIS?

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who responded to Graeme Wood’s idea that “quietist” Salafis who do not engage in politics or warfare represent an antidote to violent, activist Salafi groups like ISIS on the basis that all Salafis—jihadi or not—share similar ideologies. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Joas Wagemakers, who has written a whole book about the intersection of quietist and jihadi Salafism, argues that Western governments should be wary of engaging quietist Salafis to counter ISIS’s ideology. While quietists may provide an effective counternarrative to ISIS, they may also reinforce beliefs that are at odds with the governments’ secular values.

Joas Wagemakers: There are four reasons to be skeptical about this approach. Firstly, Western countries with (mostly) secular systems of legislation may not want to get involved in theological disputes, even indirectly, by employing or stimulating quietist Salafi scholars to counter the Islamic State’s ideology. This matter obviously brings up all kinds of complications from the perspective of the separation between church and state and one might therefore argue that governments should stay out of this altogether.

Secondly, Western or not, governments who involve themselves in religious affairs can create headaches for themselves. Quietist Salafi scholars are often viewed by their more radical brethren as lackeys to Muslim-led regimes that the Islamic State wants to overthrow, and direct government support of such scholars will most likely be interpreted as confirmation of this belief.

Thirdly, even if quietist Salafis can dissuade jihadis from radicalizing, the deep social conservatism of Salafis is at odds with what most people in Western societies believe. Governments should at least be aware of the fact that taking this approach comes with a price that they may not be willing to pay.

Fourthly, given the breadth and depth of the Islamic scholarly tradition, it is not very difficult for either quietists or jihadis to back up the irrespective claims. Put differently: “true Islam” – whatever that may be – is not as clear-cut or as easily deduced from the texts as we are sometimes led to think. In fact, as I have pointed out in an article on debates between quietist and jihadis, if one adopts the concepts, methods and basic assumptions of Salafism as a framework of reasoning, the radicals’ theological arguments may not come across as being quite as preposterous as some quietist Salafis would have us believe. Employing quietist Salafis to counter the Islamic State’s ideology may, therefore, actually convince some potential radicals of the merits of the Islamic State’s reasoning, rather than persuade them to abandon that way of thinking.

Editor's Note: This is the third post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics. Read Part I (here) and Part II (here).

Authors

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who responded to Graeme Wood’s idea that “quietist” Salafis who do not engage in politics or warfare represent an antidote to violent, activist Salafi groups like ISIS on the basis that all Salafis—jihadi or not—share similar ideologies. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Joas Wagemakers, who has written a whole book about the intersection of quietist and jihadi Salafism, argues that Western governments should be wary of engaging quietist Salafis to counter ISIS’s ideology. While quietists may provide an effective counternarrative to ISIS, they may also reinforce beliefs that are at odds with the governments’ secular values.

Joas Wagemakers: There are four reasons to be skeptical about this approach. Firstly, Western countries with (mostly) secular systems of legislation may not want to get involved in theological disputes, even indirectly, by employing or stimulating quietist Salafi scholars to counter the Islamic State’s ideology. This matter obviously brings up all kinds of complications from the perspective of the separation between church and state and one might therefore argue that governments should stay out of this altogether.

Secondly, Western or not, governments who involve themselves in religious affairs can create headaches for themselves. Quietist Salafi scholars are often viewed by their more radical brethren as lackeys to Muslim-led regimes that the Islamic State wants to overthrow, and direct government support of such scholars will most likely be interpreted as confirmation of this belief.

Thirdly, even if quietist Salafis can dissuade jihadis from radicalizing, the deep social conservatism of Salafis is at odds with what most people in Western societies believe. Governments should at least be aware of the fact that taking this approach comes with a price that they may not be willing to pay.

Fourthly, given the breadth and depth of the Islamic scholarly tradition, it is not very difficult for either quietists or jihadis to back up the irrespective claims. Put differently: “true Islam” – whatever that may be – is not as clear-cut or as easily deduced from the texts as we are sometimes led to think. In fact, as I have pointed out in an article on debates between quietist and jihadis, if one adopts the concepts, methods and basic assumptions of Salafism as a framework of reasoning, the radicals’ theological arguments may not come across as being quite as preposterous as some quietist Salafis would have us believe. Employing quietist Salafis to counter the Islamic State’s ideology may, therefore, actually convince some potential radicals of the merits of the Islamic State’s reasoning, rather than persuade them to abandon that way of thinking.

Editor's Note: This is the third post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics. Read Part I (here) and Part II (here).

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/03/17-rethinking-islamism-quietist-salafis-experts-part-2?rssid=islamic+world{D88B91E4-5994-4A80-9947-141386CE097D}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/87174451/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Experts-weigh-in-part-Is-quietist-Salafism-the-antidote-to-ISISExperts weigh in (part 2): Is quietist Salafism the antidote to ISIS?

Editor's note: This is the second post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics.

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who has just written a paper about quietist Salafism. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Next up is Mubin Shaikh, who considered himself a jihadi-Salafi in his twenties. Mubin changed his mind after 9/11 when studying Islam and Arabic in Syria, and returned to work as an undercover operative for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He now advises various Western agencies on how to counter violent extremism and is working on a Ph.D in psychology.

Mubin Shaikh: Although I find myself largely in agreement with many of Jacob’s points, I concur with Graeme that quietist Salafism is in fact an antidote to ISIS — despite my many reservations about other parts of Graeme’s article.

ISIS and quietist Salafis do share an intellectual genealogy. But in contrast to most quietist Salafis, ISIS’s violent worldview springs from the political realities of Iraq and the views of Saddam-era Baathists who make up the top echelons of ISIS. Quietist Salafis can (and do) openly and vociferously oppose ISIS’ interpretation of Islamic texts and dispute its use of Islamic scripture and scholarship.

Contrary to suggestions that we should not work with the Salafis because they do not favor democracy, our concern here should be less about their views and more about the impact of these views. I’d rather have young Muslim Salafi types who don’t vote or don’t believe in voting than have those who think terrorism is in any way legitimate in Islam.

Those deemed to be “moderate” Muslims have little to no influence with people who have come under the spell of the deviant and un-Islamic teachings of “jihadi-Salafism” (a belief system which does not adhere to the true concepts of “jihad” or “Salafism”). So it takes those who speak the language and dress the part to engage them in the way they need to be engaged; quietist Salafis can fill this role.

Quietist Salafis are not the only ones who should be intervening with youth attracted to jihadism. And ideology should not be the sole focus of interventions. Many Muslims hold serious grievances (both perceived and real) that also need to be addressed. But quietist Salafis can be very effective at persuading radicalized youth to consider more constructive approaches to political change. Such cognitive openings are the first step toward changing a youth’s mind about why he or she is aggrieved, and what to do about it.

Authors

Editor's note: This is the second post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics.

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantic touched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way.

First out of the gate was Jacob Olidort, who has just written a paper about quietist Salafism. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

Next up is Mubin Shaikh, who considered himself a jihadi-Salafi in his twenties. Mubin changed his mind after 9/11 when studying Islam and Arabic in Syria, and returned to work as an undercover operative for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He now advises various Western agencies on how to counter violent extremism and is working on a Ph.D in psychology.

Mubin Shaikh: Although I find myself largely in agreement with many of Jacob’s points, I concur with Graeme that quietist Salafism is in fact an antidote to ISIS — despite my many reservations about other parts of Graeme’s article.

ISIS and quietist Salafis do share an intellectual genealogy. But in contrast to most quietist Salafis, ISIS’s violent worldview springs from the political realities of Iraq and the views of Saddam-era Baathists who make up the top echelons of ISIS. Quietist Salafis can (and do) openly and vociferously oppose ISIS’ interpretation of Islamic texts and dispute its use of Islamic scripture and scholarship.

Contrary to suggestions that we should not work with the Salafis because they do not favor democracy, our concern here should be less about their views and more about the impact of these views. I’d rather have young Muslim Salafi types who don’t vote or don’t believe in voting than have those who think terrorism is in any way legitimate in Islam.

Those deemed to be “moderate” Muslims have little to no influence with people who have come under the spell of the deviant and un-Islamic teachings of “jihadi-Salafism” (a belief system which does not adhere to the true concepts of “jihad” or “Salafism”). So it takes those who speak the language and dress the part to engage them in the way they need to be engaged; quietist Salafis can fill this role.

Quietist Salafis are not the only ones who should be intervening with youth attracted to jihadism. And ideology should not be the sole focus of interventions. Many Muslims hold serious grievances (both perceived and real) that also need to be addressed. But quietist Salafis can be very effective at persuading radicalized youth to consider more constructive approaches to political change. Such cognitive openings are the first step toward changing a youth’s mind about why he or she is aggrieved, and what to do about it.

Recently, an argument has circulated that killing the leaders of terrorist groups—pursuing the strategy of “decapitation”—is ineffective and possibly counterproductive to counterterrorism efforts. My new analysis paper for the Brookings Institution, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, suggests otherwise. With respect to the Islamic State, leadership matters.

True, al-Qaida did not end with Osama Bin Laden’s death, though it has been significantly weakened. It is also true, as Jenna Jordan points out in a new article, that “even if [terrorist] organizations are weakened after the killing or arrest of their leaders, they tend to survive, regroup and continue carrying out attacks.”

And yet, jihadi leaders are not all the same. As with politicians or heads of state, there are varying levels of competence and effectiveness. It would be a mistake to see jihadi leaders as billiard balls: as essentially interchangeable vessels of jihadi ideology. The Islamic State is a case in point.

Founded in October 2006 as the Islamic State of Iraq—but known informally as “the Islamic State” from the very beginning—the group has had two sets of leaders. The first comprised “Commander of the Faithful” Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, a former Iraqi police officer, and his Egyptian deputy Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, both of whom were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in April 2010. If you have never heard of these men before, it is partly because they were distinctly unremarkable. The first Baghdadi was for years rumored to be an actor playing a fictional character, and even the U.S. military was convinced of this at one point. In his audio statements, Baghdadi was at pains to point out that he was in fact a real person.

The first leaders left behind some 17 hours of audio statements, on which my paper draws a great deal. These are highly revealing with regard to the Islamic State’s strategy and ideology, as they were almost certainly written by the group’s Shari‘a Council. What they also reveal is that the leaders had a hard time pronouncing the words before them. In their long-winded speeches, Baghdadi and Muhajir committed numerous grammatical and vocalization errors. This led a top al-Qaeda ideologue to write the duo in spring 2007, counseling shorter speeches so as to limit these embarrassing “slipups.”

The group’s current leaders, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Syrian Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, are a significant improvement. For one thing, they possess unmistakable scholarly proclivities, Baghdadi having a Ph.D. in Islamic jurisprudence and ‘Adnani having taught Islamic theology in jihadi training camps. There are no pronunciation errors here. For another, they exhibit a strategic acumen wholly lacking in their predecessors. Instead of publicly boasting about groundless successes, these men bided their time while the Americans left Iraq, silently laying the groundwork for a comeback that they announced only in 2012. Meanwhile, they turned the turmoil in Syria to their advantage in a way by no means inevitable. Objectively speaking, these men are learned, eloquent, and, most important, effective. The Islamic State’s success since 2013, while contingent on numerous factors from the Arab Spring to the Syrian civil war, seems inconceivable apart from its new, more effective leadership.

This is not to say that eliminating these leaders would spell the end of the Islamic State, but rather that their demise could significantly weaken it. For all we know, the group may have a talented successor to Baghdadi lined up. Indeed, the 2010 statement elevating Baghdadi to “commander of the faithful” named a certain Abu ‘Abdallah al-Hasani al-Qurashi as deputy. Also a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe, ‘Abdallah would thus be a candidate for the office of caliphate when Baghdadi goes. It is an open question, however, whether he or any other successor could really take over the role of the now larger-than-life Baghdadi. This man, one can be certain, is no mere actor.

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Authors

Recently, an argument has circulated that killing the leaders of terrorist groups—pursuing the strategy of “decapitation”—is ineffective and possibly counterproductive to counterterrorism efforts. My new analysis paper for the Brookings Institution, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State, suggests otherwise. With respect to the Islamic State, leadership matters.

True, al-Qaida did not end with Osama Bin Laden’s death, though it has been significantly weakened. It is also true, as Jenna Jordan points out in a new article, that “even if [terrorist] organizations are weakened after the killing or arrest of their leaders, they tend to survive, regroup and continue carrying out attacks.”

And yet, jihadi leaders are not all the same. As with politicians or heads of state, there are varying levels of competence and effectiveness. It would be a mistake to see jihadi leaders as billiard balls: as essentially interchangeable vessels of jihadi ideology. The Islamic State is a case in point.

Founded in October 2006 as the Islamic State of Iraq—but known informally as “the Islamic State” from the very beginning—the group has had two sets of leaders. The first comprised “Commander of the Faithful” Abu ‘Umar al-Baghdadi, a former Iraqi police officer, and his Egyptian deputy Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, both of whom were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in April 2010. If you have never heard of these men before, it is partly because they were distinctly unremarkable. The first Baghdadi was for years rumored to be an actor playing a fictional character, and even the U.S. military was convinced of this at one point. In his audio statements, Baghdadi was at pains to point out that he was in fact a real person.

The first leaders left behind some 17 hours of audio statements, on which my paper draws a great deal. These are highly revealing with regard to the Islamic State’s strategy and ideology, as they were almost certainly written by the group’s Shari‘a Council. What they also reveal is that the leaders had a hard time pronouncing the words before them. In their long-winded speeches, Baghdadi and Muhajir committed numerous grammatical and vocalization errors. This led a top al-Qaeda ideologue to write the duo in spring 2007, counseling shorter speeches so as to limit these embarrassing “slipups.”

The group’s current leaders, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Syrian Abu Muhammad al-‘Adnani, are a significant improvement. For one thing, they possess unmistakable scholarly proclivities, Baghdadi having a Ph.D. in Islamic jurisprudence and ‘Adnani having taught Islamic theology in jihadi training camps. There are no pronunciation errors here. For another, they exhibit a strategic acumen wholly lacking in their predecessors. Instead of publicly boasting about groundless successes, these men bided their time while the Americans left Iraq, silently laying the groundwork for a comeback that they announced only in 2012. Meanwhile, they turned the turmoil in Syria to their advantage in a way by no means inevitable. Objectively speaking, these men are learned, eloquent, and, most important, effective. The Islamic State’s success since 2013, while contingent on numerous factors from the Arab Spring to the Syrian civil war, seems inconceivable apart from its new, more effective leadership.

This is not to say that eliminating these leaders would spell the end of the Islamic State, but rather that their demise could significantly weaken it. For all we know, the group may have a talented successor to Baghdadi lined up. Indeed, the 2010 statement elevating Baghdadi to “commander of the faithful” named a certain Abu ‘Abdallah al-Hasani al-Qurashi as deputy. Also a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe, ‘Abdallah would thus be a candidate for the office of caliphate when Baghdadi goes. It is an open question, however, whether he or any other successor could really take over the role of the now larger-than-life Baghdadi. This man, one can be certain, is no mere actor.

Editor's note: This is the first post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics.

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantictouched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way. We envision a conversation with plenty of room for waffling and mind-changing (or, at least my own waffling and mind-changing). If others would like to comment elsewhere in thoughtful, dispassionate manner, I’ll be sure to link to their posts (just tweet them @usislam).

First out of the gate is Jacob Olidort, who has just written a paper about quietist Salafism. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

In light of Olidort’s article on quietest Salafis, I asked him what he thought of the idea of promoting quietist Salafism as an antidote to ISIS. Here’s his response:

Jacob Olidort: This proposal, while tempting, can lead down a dangerously slippery slope. “Quietism,” or abstaining from political involvement or activism, is merely a placeholder rather than a principle for most Salafi groups today.

"Quietists,” activists, jihadists, and other Salafis are all composed of the same theological DNA. They base themselves on texts and concepts developed over centuries by communities of established Muslim scholars. Indeed, this is a crucial component of the Salafi claim to authenticity. It is therefore not a big conceptual leap to go from quietism to jihadism.

The turbulent politics of the Middle East have encouraged Salafis to shift their approaches to political engagement; where Salafis stand today is not necessarily where they will stand tomorrow.

There have been many cases of so-called “quietist” Salafis throughout the twentieth century who became activist. Most recently, hundreds of thousands of quietists became politically active in parliamentary elections after the Arab Spring revolutions, perhaps the most famous example being the Nour party in Egypt.

The civil war in Syria is also shifting the terms of the debate among Salafis about whether to engage in political activism. Before the war, the intra-Salafi debate was focused solely on the merits of engaging in parliamentary politics and on whether it was appropriate to excommunicate Muslims who disagreed with them. The discussion has now shifted to focus on how best to address the growing humanitarian problem, which often puts quietists and jihadists on the same page.

The human toll of the crisis in Syria (which activist and quietist Salafis depict as a result of the Asad government’s Shiite faith) has led some non-violent Salafis—such as the Lebanese Salafi Ahmed al-Assir—to take up arms and lead battalions in Syria. The humanitarian crisis also continues to inform the quietists’ deliberations over how best to protect the welfare and survival of their Muslim brethren. For example, in Kuwait, Salafi fundraisers debate whether money should be channeled towards arming fighters or providing bread and blankets to orphans.

This is an intra-Salafi and intra-Muslim conversation that needs to be worked out at the level of religious doctrines. It is not clear what kind of contribution the U.S. government—or any world government for that matter— could make to this debate.

Authors

Editor's note: This is the first post in an ongoing series in which authors debate the philosophical and policy challenges posed by the confluence of Islam and politics.

Will McCants:Graeme Wood’s article on ISIS in this month’s Atlantictouched off a national debate about the insurgent group’s uses and abuses of Islam. Over the next few weeks, we thought it would be interesting for scholars of ISIS and political Islam to think through some of the issues raised by Wood, giving him a chance to weigh in along the way. We envision a conversation with plenty of room for waffling and mind-changing (or, at least my own waffling and mind-changing). If others would like to comment elsewhere in thoughtful, dispassionate manner, I’ll be sure to link to their posts (just tweet them @usislam).

First out of the gate is Jacob Olidort, who has just written a paper about quietist Salafism. Salafis are ultraconservative Sunni Muslims. Some Salafis engage in parliamentary politics and some engage in revolution (“jihadis” in their parlance). But most Salafis don’t engage in direct political action—earning them the appellation of “quietist” from Western academics.

Because quietist Salafis speak the same theological language as the jihadis but reject their violent activism, Graeme thinks they offer “an Islamic antidote to Baghdadi-style jihadism” (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi runs the Islamic State). I’ve pushed a related idea in the past so I understand the appeal of Wood’s argument even though I’ve moved away from it. Such an approach would be akin to tolerating socialists to counter communists.

In light of Olidort’s article on quietest Salafis, I asked him what he thought of the idea of promoting quietist Salafism as an antidote to ISIS. Here’s his response:

Jacob Olidort: This proposal, while tempting, can lead down a dangerously slippery slope. “Quietism,” or abstaining from political involvement or activism, is merely a placeholder rather than a principle for most Salafi groups today.

"Quietists,” activists, jihadists, and other Salafis are all composed of the same theological DNA. They base themselves on texts and concepts developed over centuries by communities of established Muslim scholars. Indeed, this is a crucial component of the Salafi claim to authenticity. It is therefore not a big conceptual leap to go from quietism to jihadism.

The turbulent politics of the Middle East have encouraged Salafis to shift their approaches to political engagement; where Salafis stand today is not necessarily where they will stand tomorrow.

There have been many cases of so-called “quietist” Salafis throughout the twentieth century who became activist. Most recently, hundreds of thousands of quietists became politically active in parliamentary elections after the Arab Spring revolutions, perhaps the most famous example being the Nour party in Egypt.

The civil war in Syria is also shifting the terms of the debate among Salafis about whether to engage in political activism. Before the war, the intra-Salafi debate was focused solely on the merits of engaging in parliamentary politics and on whether it was appropriate to excommunicate Muslims who disagreed with them. The discussion has now shifted to focus on how best to address the growing humanitarian problem, which often puts quietists and jihadists on the same page.

The human toll of the crisis in Syria (which activist and quietist Salafis depict as a result of the Asad government’s Shiite faith) has led some non-violent Salafis—such as the Lebanese Salafi Ahmed al-Assir—to take up arms and lead battalions in Syria. The humanitarian crisis also continues to inform the quietists’ deliberations over how best to protect the welfare and survival of their Muslim brethren. For example, in Kuwait, Salafi fundraisers debate whether money should be channeled towards arming fighters or providing bread and blankets to orphans.

This is an intra-Salafi and intra-Muslim conversation that needs to be worked out at the level of religious doctrines. It is not clear what kind of contribution the U.S. government—or any world government for that matter— could make to this debate.

Event Information

While the Islamic State dominates headlines through its brutal tactics and online propaganda, questions persist about its ideology and recruitment techniques. Two new Brookings papers break down ISIS’ ideology and social media methods to trace how the group rose from a “paper state” of little influence to a global jihadi movement.

Event Information

While the Islamic State dominates headlines through its brutal tactics and online propaganda, questions persist about its ideology and recruitment techniques. Two new Brookings papers break down ISIS’ ideology and social media methods to trace how the group rose from a “paper state” of little influence to a global jihadi movement.

Audio

Transcript

Event Materials

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/03/ideology-of-islamic-state?rssid=islamic+world{599DAEDF-EE4B-4205-A729-ED94F1E99F74}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/86698686/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~The-ideology-of-the-Islamic-StateThe ideology of the Islamic State

While the Islamic State dominates headlines through its brutal tactics and pervasive propaganda, there is little awareness of the unique ideology driving the group's strategy. Drawing from private correspondence, statements, speeches, and Islamic theology, Cole Bunzel unpacks the ideology of the Islamic State in a new analysis paper.

The Islamic State, Bunzel argues, is inconceivable apart from its ideology. Like al-Qaida, the group identifies with a movement in Islamic political thought known as jihadi-Salafism, or jihadism for short. Jihadi-Salafism is a distinct ideological movement in Sunni Islam, encompassing not only militant groups, but also a global network of scholars, websites, media outlets, and numerous supporters on social media.

The Islamic State’s version of jihadi-Salafism is predicated on an extremist reading of Islamic scripture that is also textually rigorous, deeply rooted in a premodern theological tradition, and elaborated on by a recognized cadre of religious authorities. Founded in 2006 as an al-Qaida offshoot, the Islamic State’s founders espoused sharply anti-Shiite sectarian views and harsh application of Islamic law. Empowered by its ideology, the group rose from a “paper state” of little influence to a global jihadi movement.

Bunzel argues that the coalition military campaign may actually strengthen the Islamic State’s ideology by lending credence to one of the group’s fundamental views: the idea that Shia are conspiring with the United States and secular Arab rulers to limit Sunni power in the Middle East. Instead, Bunzel recommends regional governments take the lead in countering the Islamic State by deconstructing its violent ideology and eroding the legitimacy of its claims to statehood. Reducing the Islamic State from a “caliphate” back to a “paper state,” Bunzel writes, may stem the group’s influence.

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Authors

While the Islamic State dominates headlines through its brutal tactics and pervasive propaganda, there is little awareness of the unique ideology driving the group's strategy. Drawing from private correspondence, statements, speeches, and Islamic theology, Cole Bunzel unpacks the ideology of the Islamic State in a new analysis paper.

The Islamic State, Bunzel argues, is inconceivable apart from its ideology. Like al-Qaida, the group identifies with a movement in Islamic political thought known as jihadi-Salafism, or jihadism for short. Jihadi-Salafism is a distinct ideological movement in Sunni Islam, encompassing not only militant groups, but also a global network of scholars, websites, media outlets, and numerous supporters on social media.

The Islamic State’s version of jihadi-Salafism is predicated on an extremist reading of Islamic scripture that is also textually rigorous, deeply rooted in a premodern theological tradition, and elaborated on by a recognized cadre of religious authorities. Founded in 2006 as an al-Qaida offshoot, the Islamic State’s founders espoused sharply anti-Shiite sectarian views and harsh application of Islamic law. Empowered by its ideology, the group rose from a “paper state” of little influence to a global jihadi movement.

Bunzel argues that the coalition military campaign may actually strengthen the Islamic State’s ideology by lending credence to one of the group’s fundamental views: the idea that Shia are conspiring with the United States and secular Arab rulers to limit Sunni power in the Middle East. Instead, Bunzel recommends regional governments take the lead in countering the Islamic State by deconstructing its violent ideology and eroding the legitimacy of its claims to statehood. Reducing the Islamic State from a “caliphate” back to a “paper state,” Bunzel writes, may stem the group’s influence.

Many of the arguments Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in his speech to Congress on Tuesday probably resonated with his American listeners, including the argument that allowing Iran to keep a uranium enrichment capacity poses dangers. As we found in a survey we conducted Feb. 19 to 25, Americans care about many of the considerations that he has been raising. But, even putting aside the partisan nature of Netanyahu’s speech, it is still unlikely that the substance of what he said will move the majority of Americans to oppose making a deal with Iran that would allow it to have a limited uranium enrichment program.

The survey — fielded by GfK among a nationally representative panel of 710 Americans, with a 4 point margin of error — showed that large majorities of respondents found arguments convincing both for and against making a deal, including the kind of arguments made by Netanyahu. But in the end, 61 percent of participants broke in favor of making a deal allowing limited enrichment, provided that there are intrusive inspections, rather than ramping up sanctions in an effort to get Iran to give up all enrichment.

Netanyahu argued forcefully that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would pose an extreme threat. But our survey shows that the question for Americans is not whether there is a threat but how best to respond to it. The argument he made, that more sanctions will lead to a better deal, did prove at least somewhat convincing to many, but in the end they did not think that was the way to go. And his argument that raising higher the requirements for getting a deal — requiring a general improvement in Iranian behavior as well as stopping enrichment — is unlikely to make a lot of headway as Americans do not appear to have a lot of confidence that more sanctions will even stop Iran from enriching.

If the debate about a deal with Iran gets a higher profile in the next weeks, advocates for and against a deal will see heads nodding and get the impression that they are making major headway with their audiences. The U.S. public can see that arguments on both sides of the issue have merit, but, when asked, they do make a clear decision — even in the face of tough challenges.

In the survey we presented respondents with a briefing on the debate surrounding the negotiations with Iran. We also asked them to evaluate a series of 12 strongly stated arguments for and against making a deal and for and against ramping up sanctions. These arguments were fully vetted with congressional staffers from the Democratic and Republican parties and advocates for both positions.

Large majorities, as much as two-thirds of respondents, found all of the arguments at least somewhat convincing. Overall neither position appeared dominant.

When participants were asked whether they could tolerate each option, majorities said they could tolerate either making a deal or ramping up sanctions, though the option of making a deal was tolerable to a larger majority, and the majority grew after evaluating the arguments.

But most significantly, when asked for their final recommendation, making a deal based on limited enrichment was favored not only by 61 percent overall, but also 61 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of Evangelicals, and a plurality (46 to 41 percent) of strong Tea Party sympathizers. Among those who watch Fox News daily, views were divided, with support for the deal rising to 55 percent among those who watch Fox News only two to three times a week. Frequent viewers of Christian broadcasting networks were the exception: They favored more sanctions by 58 percent.

While the survey was taken just before Netanyahu’s speech, it had been widely reported that Netanyahu has opposed a deal. His opposition does not appear to have had an effect on survey respondents. The percentage of participants supporting a deal in this survey was exactly the same (61 percent) as it was when the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) ran the same set of questions in June 2014. Respondents’ attitudes toward the speech may have also dulled any possible effect: 51 percent of all respondents in the current survey thought that it was inappropriate for Netanyahu to speak to Congress without a diplomatic invitation.

The bottom line is that Americans are deeply ambivalent about making a deal. They find convincing the arguments that making a deal is the best option because bombing would just lead Iran to rebuild underground, invading is not a real option, intrusive inspections will give us the ability to know what is going on in time if Iran tries to break out, and Americans would never let another country tell us we have no right to a nuclear energy program.

But they also find persuasive the arguments that the United States should not let Iran defy the U.N. Security Council’s demand that they stop enriching, that limited enrichment will give Iran the ability to refine their enrichment capacities thus positioning them for a breakout and that if the United States dismantles the international sanctions against Iran now it will very difficult to reestablish them if Iran starts cheating.

Arguments in favor of ramping up sanctions to pressure Iran to give up all enrichment are also found convincing by majorities, including the arguments that the sanctions are clearly working as evidenced by Iran’s desire for a deal; that Iranians’ readiness to accept the pain they have endured with sanctions is proof that their real goal is getting nuclear weapons; and that the United States needs to keep the momentum of the sanctions going.

On the other hand, majorities also find convincing the arguments that sanctions have clearly not worked to get Iran to give up enrichment while they have worked to get Iran to accept limits; that the only way to ramp up sanctions is to punish other countries who trade with Iran and this will make these countries angry at the United States; and that if the United States does not follow through when Iran is ready to make a deal we will likely lose the support of our partners, thus undermining the whole sanction regime anyhow.

If the Obama administration does make a deal with Iran in time for the March 24 deadline, Americans are going to be bombarded by all of these arguments as Congress and the pundits jump into the fray, as well as outside voices like Netanyahu’s.

But despite finding all of these arguments persuasive, our research suggests that Americans will not be immobilized by their ambivalence from coming to a conclusion, or simply divide along party lines.

At this point it appears more likely that Americans will come down in favor of a deal. But the fact that Americans are responsive to a wide array of considerations suggests that they will scrutinize the final terms of the deal and be responsive to even subtle considerations. The details will matter. Still, it’s unlikely that there will be trumping arguments one way or the other, including by the leader of a country that is important to many Americans.

Steven Kull is director of the Program for Public Consultation and senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Authors

Many of the arguments Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made in his speech to Congress on Tuesday probably resonated with his American listeners, including the argument that allowing Iran to keep a uranium enrichment capacity poses dangers. As we found in a survey we conducted Feb. 19 to 25, Americans care about many of the considerations that he has been raising. But, even putting aside the partisan nature of Netanyahu’s speech, it is still unlikely that the substance of what he said will move the majority of Americans to oppose making a deal with Iran that would allow it to have a limited uranium enrichment program.

The survey — fielded by GfK among a nationally representative panel of 710 Americans, with a 4 point margin of error — showed that large majorities of respondents found arguments convincing both for and against making a deal, including the kind of arguments made by Netanyahu. But in the end, 61 percent of participants broke in favor of making a deal allowing limited enrichment, provided that there are intrusive inspections, rather than ramping up sanctions in an effort to get Iran to give up all enrichment.

Netanyahu argued forcefully that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would pose an extreme threat. But our survey shows that the question for Americans is not whether there is a threat but how best to respond to it. The argument he made, that more sanctions will lead to a better deal, did prove at least somewhat convincing to many, but in the end they did not think that was the way to go. And his argument that raising higher the requirements for getting a deal — requiring a general improvement in Iranian behavior as well as stopping enrichment — is unlikely to make a lot of headway as Americans do not appear to have a lot of confidence that more sanctions will even stop Iran from enriching.

If the debate about a deal with Iran gets a higher profile in the next weeks, advocates for and against a deal will see heads nodding and get the impression that they are making major headway with their audiences. The U.S. public can see that arguments on both sides of the issue have merit, but, when asked, they do make a clear decision — even in the face of tough challenges.

In the survey we presented respondents with a briefing on the debate surrounding the negotiations with Iran. We also asked them to evaluate a series of 12 strongly stated arguments for and against making a deal and for and against ramping up sanctions. These arguments were fully vetted with congressional staffers from the Democratic and Republican parties and advocates for both positions.

Large majorities, as much as two-thirds of respondents, found all of the arguments at least somewhat convincing. Overall neither position appeared dominant.

When participants were asked whether they could tolerate each option, majorities said they could tolerate either making a deal or ramping up sanctions, though the option of making a deal was tolerable to a larger majority, and the majority grew after evaluating the arguments.

But most significantly, when asked for their final recommendation, making a deal based on limited enrichment was favored not only by 61 percent overall, but also 61 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of Evangelicals, and a plurality (46 to 41 percent) of strong Tea Party sympathizers. Among those who watch Fox News daily, views were divided, with support for the deal rising to 55 percent among those who watch Fox News only two to three times a week. Frequent viewers of Christian broadcasting networks were the exception: They favored more sanctions by 58 percent.

While the survey was taken just before Netanyahu’s speech, it had been widely reported that Netanyahu has opposed a deal. His opposition does not appear to have had an effect on survey respondents. The percentage of participants supporting a deal in this survey was exactly the same (61 percent) as it was when the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) ran the same set of questions in June 2014. Respondents’ attitudes toward the speech may have also dulled any possible effect: 51 percent of all respondents in the current survey thought that it was inappropriate for Netanyahu to speak to Congress without a diplomatic invitation.

The bottom line is that Americans are deeply ambivalent about making a deal. They find convincing the arguments that making a deal is the best option because bombing would just lead Iran to rebuild underground, invading is not a real option, intrusive inspections will give us the ability to know what is going on in time if Iran tries to break out, and Americans would never let another country tell us we have no right to a nuclear energy program.

But they also find persuasive the arguments that the United States should not let Iran defy the U.N. Security Council’s demand that they stop enriching, that limited enrichment will give Iran the ability to refine their enrichment capacities thus positioning them for a breakout and that if the United States dismantles the international sanctions against Iran now it will very difficult to reestablish them if Iran starts cheating.

Arguments in favor of ramping up sanctions to pressure Iran to give up all enrichment are also found convincing by majorities, including the arguments that the sanctions are clearly working as evidenced by Iran’s desire for a deal; that Iranians’ readiness to accept the pain they have endured with sanctions is proof that their real goal is getting nuclear weapons; and that the United States needs to keep the momentum of the sanctions going.

On the other hand, majorities also find convincing the arguments that sanctions have clearly not worked to get Iran to give up enrichment while they have worked to get Iran to accept limits; that the only way to ramp up sanctions is to punish other countries who trade with Iran and this will make these countries angry at the United States; and that if the United States does not follow through when Iran is ready to make a deal we will likely lose the support of our partners, thus undermining the whole sanction regime anyhow.

If the Obama administration does make a deal with Iran in time for the March 24 deadline, Americans are going to be bombarded by all of these arguments as Congress and the pundits jump into the fray, as well as outside voices like Netanyahu’s.

But despite finding all of these arguments persuasive, our research suggests that Americans will not be immobilized by their ambivalence from coming to a conclusion, or simply divide along party lines.

At this point it appears more likely that Americans will come down in favor of a deal. But the fact that Americans are responsive to a wide array of considerations suggests that they will scrutinize the final terms of the deal and be responsive to even subtle considerations. The details will matter. Still, it’s unlikely that there will be trumping arguments one way or the other, including by the leader of a country that is important to many Americans.

Steven Kull is director of the Program for Public Consultation and senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Authors

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http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/03/06-isis-twitter-census-berger?rssid=islamic+world{61300949-7BED-433E-861C-4A9FB3E2FB44}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/86528739/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Making-sense-of-ISISs-use-of-TwitterMaking sense of ISIS's use of Twitter

For nearly a year, policymakers and the media have been fascinated with the topic of how the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, uses Twitter.

But for all the attention devoted to the subject, some fundamental questions have remained unanswered, either left completely unaddressed, or characterized by claims that are derived from unclear sources.

With an eye toward informing the debate over how to respond to the machinations of ISIS’s social media operation, we have written the ISIS Twitter Census, a new study that examines the scope and activity of ISIS supporters on social media in unprecedented detail, including a thorough discussion of the methodology used to create the report.

The report’s findings include:

In October through November 2014, at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters.

A sample of 20,000 confirmed ISIS supporters was examined to extract demographics data, with a plurality of users apparently residing in the territories controlled by the Islamic State. The second-most common location for ISIS supporters was Saudi Arabia.

Nearly one in five ISIS supporting accounts designated English as their primary language. Almost three quarters selected Arabic, and one in 20 selected French.

Thousands of accounts have been suspended by Twitter since October 2014, measurably degrading ISIS’s ability to project its propaganda to wider audiences. We believe the data here should permanently lay to rest the recurring objection to account suspensions based on “whack-a-mole”—the argument that ISIS can simply replace suspended accounts without suffering any negative consequences. If suspensions are carried out on a consistent basis, they do have an effect on the targeted network.

After an initial wave of suspensions in September 2014, thousands of new ISIS accounts were created to replace or supplement those that had been lost. However, as the suspension campaign continued, significantly fewer new accounts were created in subsequent months.

The accounts most likely to be suspended were also those most important to distributing ISIS’s message, a group of highly organized activists who post tweets at a much faster pace than normal users.

The process of suspension does create certain new risks. Most importantly, while suspensions appear to have created obstacles to joining ISIS’s social network, they also isolate ISIS supporters online, which could increase the speed and intensity of radicalization for those who do manage to enter the network, and hinder organic social pressures that could lead to deradicalization.

Each of these issues is discussed in considerably more detail in the full report, which is available here. We hope that the report will improve the quality of the debate over how to handle the problem of ISIS and other terrorist groups on social media by presenting a large body of preliminary data and recommendations for further study.

Authors

For nearly a year, policymakers and the media have been fascinated with the topic of how the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, uses Twitter.

But for all the attention devoted to the subject, some fundamental questions have remained unanswered, either left completely unaddressed, or characterized by claims that are derived from unclear sources.

With an eye toward informing the debate over how to respond to the machinations of ISIS’s social media operation, we have written the ISIS Twitter Census, a new study that examines the scope and activity of ISIS supporters on social media in unprecedented detail, including a thorough discussion of the methodology used to create the report.

The report’s findings include:

In October through November 2014, at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters.

A sample of 20,000 confirmed ISIS supporters was examined to extract demographics data, with a plurality of users apparently residing in the territories controlled by the Islamic State. The second-most common location for ISIS supporters was Saudi Arabia.

Nearly one in five ISIS supporting accounts designated English as their primary language. Almost three quarters selected Arabic, and one in 20 selected French.

Thousands of accounts have been suspended by Twitter since October 2014, measurably degrading ISIS’s ability to project its propaganda to wider audiences. We believe the data here should permanently lay to rest the recurring objection to account suspensions based on “whack-a-mole”—the argument that ISIS can simply replace suspended accounts without suffering any negative consequences. If suspensions are carried out on a consistent basis, they do have an effect on the targeted network.

After an initial wave of suspensions in September 2014, thousands of new ISIS accounts were created to replace or supplement those that had been lost. However, as the suspension campaign continued, significantly fewer new accounts were created in subsequent months.

The accounts most likely to be suspended were also those most important to distributing ISIS’s message, a group of highly organized activists who post tweets at a much faster pace than normal users.

The process of suspension does create certain new risks. Most importantly, while suspensions appear to have created obstacles to joining ISIS’s social network, they also isolate ISIS supporters online, which could increase the speed and intensity of radicalization for those who do manage to enter the network, and hinder organic social pressures that could lead to deradicalization.

Each of these issues is discussed in considerably more detail in the full report, which is available here. We hope that the report will improve the quality of the debate over how to handle the problem of ISIS and other terrorist groups on social media by presenting a large body of preliminary data and recommendations for further study.

Authors

]]>
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan?rssid=islamic+world{CD54BAA7-6A6E-4BB4-9BE2-CA5C8A96D709}http://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/86471664/0/brookingsrss/projects/islamicworld~Defining-and-describing-the-population-of-ISIS-supporters-on-TwitterDefining and describing the population of ISIS supporters on Twitter

Although much ink has been spilled on ISIS’s activity on Twitter, very basic questions about the group’s social media strategy remain unanswered. In a new analysis paper, J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan answer fundamental questions about how many Twitter users support ISIS, who and where they are, and how they participate in its highly organized online activities.

Previous analyses of ISIS’s Twitter reach have relied on limited segments of the overall ISIS social network. The small, cellular nature of that network—and the focus on particular subsets within the network such as foreign fighters—may create misleading conclusions. This information vacuum extends to discussions of how the West should respond to the group’s online campaigns.

Berger and Morgan present a demographic snapshot of ISIS supporters on Twitter by analyzing a sample of 20,000 ISIS-supporting Twitter accounts. Using a sophisticated and innovative methodology, the authors map the locations, preferred languages, and the number and type of followers of these accounts.

Among the key findings:

• From September through December 2014, the authors estimate that at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters, although not all of them were active at the same time.

• Typical ISIS supporters were located within the organization’s territories in Syria and Iraq, as well as in regions contested by ISIS. Hundreds of ISIS-supporting accounts sent tweets with location metadata embedded.

• Almost one in five ISIS supporters selected English as their primary language when using Twitter. Three quarters selected Arabic.

• ISIS-supporting accounts had an average of about 1,000 followers each, considerably higher than an ordinary Twitter user. ISIS-supporting accounts were also considerably more active than non-supporting users.

• A minimum of 1,000 ISIS-supporting accounts were suspended by Twitter between September and December 2014. Accounts that tweeted most often and had the most followers were most likely to be suspended.

• Much of ISIS’s social media success can be attributed to a relatively small group of hyperactive users, numbering between 500 and 2,000 accounts, which tweet in concentrated bursts of high volume.

Based on their key findings, the authors recommend social media companies and the U.S government work together to devise appropriate responses to extremism on social media. Approaches to the problem of extremist use of social media, Berger and Morgan contend, are most likely to succeed when they are mainstreamed into wider dialogues among the broad range of community, private, and public stakeholders.

Authors

Although much ink has been spilled on ISIS’s activity on Twitter, very basic questions about the group’s social media strategy remain unanswered. In a new analysis paper, J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan answer fundamental questions about how many Twitter users support ISIS, who and where they are, and how they participate in its highly organized online activities.

Previous analyses of ISIS’s Twitter reach have relied on limited segments of the overall ISIS social network. The small, cellular nature of that network—and the focus on particular subsets within the network such as foreign fighters—may create misleading conclusions. This information vacuum extends to discussions of how the West should respond to the group’s online campaigns.

Berger and Morgan present a demographic snapshot of ISIS supporters on Twitter by analyzing a sample of 20,000 ISIS-supporting Twitter accounts. Using a sophisticated and innovative methodology, the authors map the locations, preferred languages, and the number and type of followers of these accounts.

Among the key findings:

• From September through December 2014, the authors estimate that at least 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters, although not all of them were active at the same time.

• Typical ISIS supporters were located within the organization’s territories in Syria and Iraq, as well as in regions contested by ISIS. Hundreds of ISIS-supporting accounts sent tweets with location metadata embedded.

• Almost one in five ISIS supporters selected English as their primary language when using Twitter. Three quarters selected Arabic.

• ISIS-supporting accounts had an average of about 1,000 followers each, considerably higher than an ordinary Twitter user. ISIS-supporting accounts were also considerably more active than non-supporting users.

• A minimum of 1,000 ISIS-supporting accounts were suspended by Twitter between September and December 2014. Accounts that tweeted most often and had the most followers were most likely to be suspended.

• Much of ISIS’s social media success can be attributed to a relatively small group of hyperactive users, numbering between 500 and 2,000 accounts, which tweet in concentrated bursts of high volume.

Based on their key findings, the authors recommend social media companies and the U.S government work together to devise appropriate responses to extremism on social media. Approaches to the problem of extremist use of social media, Berger and Morgan contend, are most likely to succeed when they are mainstreamed into wider dialogues among the broad range of community, private, and public stakeholders.

Even before U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress, Democrats, unlike Republicans and Independents, were divided in their opinions about the Israeli leader, holding only slightly favorable views according to a poll conducted in November. But a new poll conducted jointly with the Program for Public Consultations and fielded by the research firm GfK in late February among a nationally representative panel of 710 Americans reveals that the partisan divide on Netanyahu is expanding sharply.

As in November, the recent poll asked respondents about their attitudes toward Netanyahu. Then, the poll asked about his divisive upcoming speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, March 3. As usual, a large segment of the public remains neutral towards him. But among those who feel one way or the other, the views held by Democrats and Independents have grown less favorable, while those of Republicans have become only slightly more favorable (within the 4 percent margin of error).

Among Democrats, those holding favorable views of the Israeli prime minister declined from 25 percent in November to 16 percent in February, and among Independents from 21 percent to 14 percent. Correspondingly, unfavorable views increased from 22 to 26 percent among Democrats, and from 14 to 21 percent among Independents.

After respondents provided their views of Netanyahu, they were asked some questions about his speech to Congress. 50 percent said that it’s inappropriate for Netanyahu to give the speech to Congress; broken down by party, that’s 65 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Independents, and 34 percent of Republicans. Americans are also divided on the appropriateness of boycotting the speech. Half of Democrats and 48 percent of Independents think it’s appropriate for members of Congress to stay away, while 70 percent of Republicans say such an action would be inappropriate.

The problem for Netanyahu is that this issue goes far beyond his popularity among Americans. The controversy is inevitably drawing attention to a trend developing among the grassroots of American politics: support for Israel has been broadly declining among Democrats and Independents, and increasing among Republicans. In some cases, as revealed in the November poll, the decline has been startling; for the first time, significant segments of the public were equally divided between wanting the United States to lean toward Israel or the Palestinians, with some even wanting Washington to favor the Palestinians. In particular, slightly more young Democrats (those under 30) want the United States to lean toward the Palestinians than the Israelis. Hispanic Americans, another expanding segment of the Democratic Party, are evenly divided.

On key issues, Americans, especially Democrats, support positions at odds with both Israel and a majority of people in Congress. A majority of Americans, for instance, don’t want the United States to veto a U.N. resolution declaring a Palestinian state. Most Americans are also opposed to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In the absence of a two-state solution, most Americans — and 84 percent of Democrats — favor a democratic Israel, even one that ceases to be a Jewish state, over a Jewish state that doesn’t grant Palestinians equal rights. These positions, strongly held among Democrats and Independents, have not yet reverberated in Congress: members have been taking positions on these issues that differ from the views of their constituents, in large part because these issues are not priorities for constituents. But the high-profile confrontation over Netanyahu’s speech could potentially turn Israel into a controversial issue in the upcoming Democratic congressional primaries.

What Netanyahu says in his speech will certainly matter. But it’s unlikely that it will change the debate on the Iran issue, or change the minds of Democrats and Independents who are growing to dislike him. On Iran, previous polls have shown that Americans favor a negotiated deal. In the lead up to his speech, the Israeli prime minister’s office has been highlighting the dangers of a deal with Iran that would allow it to enrich uranium at any level. But this argument has been vetted by simulation surveys in the past without changing the basic attitudes of those Americans who favor a deal. On the day Netanyahu delivers his speech, my polling partner Steven Kull and I will release a new poll on Iran, which will offer more insight into how Americans think about these very questions.

Another angle that Netanyahu appears to be taking is highlighting the danger a possible deal with Iran poses for Israel’s security — even its very existence. Putting aside that his stance appears to be undermined by a recent spate of leaks, and that even his own intelligence services disagree with his assessment, his argument is unlikely to sway the debate.

Certainly, the American public supports Israel. But when it comes to war and peace involving the United States, its policy choices do not appear to be driven by worries about consequences for its allies. For example, in the November poll, 70 percent of Americans identified the Islamic State as the biggest threat facing the United States in the Middle East, while a mere 12 percent pointed to Iran. Those in the United States most supportive of intervention to counter the Islamic State do not appear to be worried about the threat it poses to its allies: only 7 percent said their position was based on their concern for threats to key allies. Even on the Israel-Palestine conflict itself, only 14 percent said that their position is based on concern for Israeli interests; in comparison, 31 percent said their position is based on human rights.

For these reasons, Netanyahu’s speech is unlikely to sway Democrats or Independents, who may be more focused on the politics of the speech rather than its substance. It may energize Republican opposition to a deal. But that, too, would have more of a polarizing effect on American politics, and is unlikely to sway the balance on the Iran issue — which is why so many Israelis and supporters of Israel have advised that Netanyahu reconsider his plans. The ship has sailed now, though: Bibi is in Washington, and he’s not backing down. He may well win election in a couple weeks and be the next Israeli prime minister, but the consequences of his speech for Israel in American politics may be long lasting.

Authors

Even before U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress, Democrats, unlike Republicans and Independents, were divided in their opinions about the Israeli leader, holding only slightly favorable views according to a poll conducted in November. But a new poll conducted jointly with the Program for Public Consultations and fielded by the research firm GfK in late February among a nationally representative panel of 710 Americans reveals that the partisan divide on Netanyahu is expanding sharply.

As in November, the recent poll asked respondents about their attitudes toward Netanyahu. Then, the poll asked about his divisive upcoming speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, March 3. As usual, a large segment of the public remains neutral towards him. But among those who feel one way or the other, the views held by Democrats and Independents have grown less favorable, while those of Republicans have become only slightly more favorable (within the 4 percent margin of error).

Among Democrats, those holding favorable views of the Israeli prime minister declined from 25 percent in November to 16 percent in February, and among Independents from 21 percent to 14 percent. Correspondingly, unfavorable views increased from 22 to 26 percent among Democrats, and from 14 to 21 percent among Independents.

After respondents provided their views of Netanyahu, they were asked some questions about his speech to Congress. 50 percent said that it’s inappropriate for Netanyahu to give the speech to Congress; broken down by party, that’s 65 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Independents, and 34 percent of Republicans. Americans are also divided on the appropriateness of boycotting the speech. Half of Democrats and 48 percent of Independents think it’s appropriate for members of Congress to stay away, while 70 percent of Republicans say such an action would be inappropriate.

The problem for Netanyahu is that this issue goes far beyond his popularity among Americans. The controversy is inevitably drawing attention to a trend developing among the grassroots of American politics: support for Israel has been broadly declining among Democrats and Independents, and increasing among Republicans. In some cases, as revealed in the November poll, the decline has been startling; for the first time, significant segments of the public were equally divided between wanting the United States to lean toward Israel or the Palestinians, with some even wanting Washington to favor the Palestinians. In particular, slightly more young Democrats (those under 30) want the United States to lean toward the Palestinians than the Israelis. Hispanic Americans, another expanding segment of the Democratic Party, are evenly divided.

On key issues, Americans, especially Democrats, support positions at odds with both Israel and a majority of people in Congress. A majority of Americans, for instance, don’t want the United States to veto a U.N. resolution declaring a Palestinian state. Most Americans are also opposed to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In the absence of a two-state solution, most Americans — and 84 percent of Democrats — favor a democratic Israel, even one that ceases to be a Jewish state, over a Jewish state that doesn’t grant Palestinians equal rights. These positions, strongly held among Democrats and Independents, have not yet reverberated in Congress: members have been taking positions on these issues that differ from the views of their constituents, in large part because these issues are not priorities for constituents. But the high-profile confrontation over Netanyahu’s speech could potentially turn Israel into a controversial issue in the upcoming Democratic congressional primaries.

What Netanyahu says in his speech will certainly matter. But it’s unlikely that it will change the debate on the Iran issue, or change the minds of Democrats and Independents who are growing to dislike him. On Iran, previous polls have shown that Americans favor a negotiated deal. In the lead up to his speech, the Israeli prime minister’s office has been highlighting the dangers of a deal with Iran that would allow it to enrich uranium at any level. But this argument has been vetted by simulation surveys in the past without changing the basic attitudes of those Americans who favor a deal. On the day Netanyahu delivers his speech, my polling partner Steven Kull and I will release a new poll on Iran, which will offer more insight into how Americans think about these very questions.

Another angle that Netanyahu appears to be taking is highlighting the danger a possible deal with Iran poses for Israel’s security — even its very existence. Putting aside that his stance appears to be undermined by a recent spate of leaks, and that even his own intelligence services disagree with his assessment, his argument is unlikely to sway the debate.

Certainly, the American public supports Israel. But when it comes to war and peace involving the United States, its policy choices do not appear to be driven by worries about consequences for its allies. For example, in the November poll, 70 percent of Americans identified the Islamic State as the biggest threat facing the United States in the Middle East, while a mere 12 percent pointed to Iran. Those in the United States most supportive of intervention to counter the Islamic State do not appear to be worried about the threat it poses to its allies: only 7 percent said their position was based on their concern for threats to key allies. Even on the Israel-Palestine conflict itself, only 14 percent said that their position is based on concern for Israeli interests; in comparison, 31 percent said their position is based on human rights.

For these reasons, Netanyahu’s speech is unlikely to sway Democrats or Independents, who may be more focused on the politics of the speech rather than its substance. It may energize Republican opposition to a deal. But that, too, would have more of a polarizing effect on American politics, and is unlikely to sway the balance on the Iran issue — which is why so many Israelis and supporters of Israel have advised that Netanyahu reconsider his plans. The ship has sailed now, though: Bibi is in Washington, and he’s not backing down. He may well win election in a couple weeks and be the next Israeli prime minister, but the consequences of his speech for Israel in American politics may be long lasting.